


30 Days of Puckurt Tropes

by greenglowsgold



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, all the aus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 29,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1728188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenglowsgold/pseuds/greenglowsgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 stupidly cliche tropes, AUs and hidden moments. One drabble for every day in June.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1- Coffee Shop AU

**Author's Note:**

> I'm using [this](http://ghiraher.tumblr.com/post/37135733342/30-day-cheesy-tropes-challenge) list of cheesy tropes found on tumblr.
> 
> Day 1 is coffee shop AU, which I've never written before! Let's start off strong with something really fluffy.

Kurt’s coffee order changes constantly. Sometimes it’s medium drip and he doesn’t even touch the milk and sugar; sometimes he needs a caramel macchiato and feels guilty enough not to order a muffin, too. Sometimes they have that hazelnut flavor, and Kurt hates it so much he just has to be contrary and get the vanilla chai latte. Whatever his order, the one thing that always remains the same is that it’s prepared for him by a man who hates coffee.

When asked how he makes it through cram sessions and all-nighters, Noah (who gave Kurt two weeks of enjoying the new coffee shop before admitting he couldn’t recommend a flavor because he doesn’t drink any of them) replied, “willpower,” and grimaced so hard that Kurt decided not to take it as an insult. For a minute, Kurt thought this relegated Noah to tea-drinker, but this was quickly denied as well. The only think Noah would admit to liking was hot chocolate, at which point Kurt clutched his coffee to his chest protectively and left to the sound of Noah’s laughter.

It’s weird, Kurt thinks. He’s not sure why someone who hates coffee (so much that he’d scrunch up his nose and step backwards at the invitation to try even a sip, like Kurt was going to pour it down his throat if he stood too close) would want to work at a shop where that is the main product. Maybe it’s just the only job he can find right now, but then again there’s a bagel shop right down the street with decent turnover, so Kurt figures there must be more options.

He means to ask about it. He means to ask every morning, right up until he enters the shop and Noah smiles at him and asks what’s today’s poison, smirking at the end like he really means that last word, and Kurt shuts up. See, there’s this little, irrational part of him that’s afraid that if he calls attention to Noah’s odd choice of employment, Noah will stand up and say “You know, you’re right, why _am_ I working here?” and take off his apron and walk right out the door and out of Kurt’s life.

Or something.

It’s just stupid, that it only took two weeks for Noah to endear himself to Kurt, to integrate himself into Kurt’s daily routine so much that Kurt would really miss him. But Noah is just… stupidly adorable, which isn’t what Kurt would have thought from looking at him (stupidly _hot_ was the first impression). It’s quiet enough in the mornings that Kurt soon finds out Noah is studying math in college (which is horrifying) and calls home at least once a week (which makes Kurt want to swoon a little). He watches macho action flicks and musical, and he glared at Kurt when he was tricked into admitting that he cried at ‘Titanic.’ And he’ll only ever eat one thing from the shop where he works: the cinnamon scones.

Kurt would ask him out, but his gaydar is just _not_ functional in the early hour of the morning when he stops by, and he likes the coffee too much to give it up because things got awkward with the barista. So instead, he starts conversations with lines like: “Do you guys do pumpkin spice in the fall?”

“Oh no,” Noah says, hand flying to cover his heart. “You’re one of those caffeine addicts who likes the _seasonal flavors_.”

“Not true,” Kurt counters. “I hate peppermint and gingerbread. They just weren’t meant to mix with coffee. But pumpkin is good.”

“Oh, well I guess that’s alright.” Noah shrugs and goes back to making Kurt’s drink— Americano with an extra shot, this morning, because Kurt’s brain needs a kick.

“It’s not exactly a deal-breaker. I just thought I’d ask, since it’s almost October and I haven’t seen anything yet.”

“I think the answer is: sometimes? We’re not real consistent with flavors.”

Kurt grinned. “I’ve noticed.”

“I’ll mention it, though. It’s probably about time.”

“Oh. Okay.” Kurt takes a moment to examine the nearest wall and get his blush under control. It’s too early for this.

“Smells really good, too,” Noah says, smiling down at the cup filling with coffee. “I wouldn’t mind having that around in the morning.”

Kurt looks up. “You like the smell?”

Leaning over the counter to find a lid, Noah’s words are muffled. “Well, sure.” He straightens up. “But, I mean. This stuff’s good, too.” He brings the cup up a little closer before sealing it, inhaling deep. He hands it over to Kurt with a raised eyebrow. “Why d’you think I work here, anyway?”

“You like the smell,” Kurt repeats flatly, hands curled automatically around his cup. It sounds… well, who could hate the taste of something so much but like the smell enough to voluntarily surround himself with it every morning?

“Sure. Doesn’t smell as bitter as it tastes, right? And, I dunno, it’s nice. Like waking up.”

“Huh.” Kurt takes a little sip. It _is_ a different experience, drinking instead of just breathing it in.

“So I don’t mind the smell of coffee first thing in the morning.” Noah winks. “Just so you know.”

Kurt stops. Then starts again because, hey, this sounds like something he should be reacting to, right? Before— yep, Noah’s grin is already starting to falter like he’s realizing he’s made a mistake, and Kurt’s brain is still misfiring, so all he can get out is, “I don’t own a coffeemaker.”

He must look really devastated about that, because Noah’s smile returns full force, and Kurt feels himself wake up in a way that usually requires the coffee to be in his stomach, not his hand. “Okay, something to think about later, then. For now, how about dinner?”


	2. Day 2- Idol/Fan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing it pretty fast and loose with today's theme because Idol/Fan is not really my thing, but gamer!Kurt REALLY REALLY is.

It wasn’t until they were living in the same apartment that Noah noticed Kurt had some seriously weird habits when using his computer. He couldn’t find a pattern for it, either. Sometimes Kurt would sit right next to him on the couch, not caring at all if Noah peaked over his shoulder at whatever he was working on for one of his writing classes, and sometimes he would shut himself up in the bedroom, claiming he needed time alone with his thoughts. So, weird, right?

Noah couldn’t say he minded that much; he’d been all for them moving in together, but that didn’t mean they needed to spend every second within arm’s reach of each other. Privacy was nice too, and it gave him a chance to do things that needed more of his focus than he could spare when Kurt was pressed against his side, like complex integrals, or World of Warcraft.

 _Shut up_ , he thought viciously as he loaded the game on his laptop, sending out his mental message of defiance to anyone who would dare to call him a nerd. It was _good_ , okay? As long as he kept a firm handle on how many hours he logged, it was just a cool game with magic and alchemy and punching giant spiders in the face, and not a cult. And he did, because he had a life too, which was actually more awesome than casting spells, and the last time some jerk had told him he couldn’t get a girlfriend Noah had grinned because oh yeah, he had something _way_ better.

He logged his character into the same world as always, because he had habits too, and settled deeper into the couch. With Kurt locked up in another room to bang out some assignment or other, and nothing else to do today, maybe he could go all in and do a raid or something. He’d never gotten around to joining a regular party or anything, because that implied a long-term commitment and regularly scheduled meetings, but there were usually people around who, like him, just wanted something fun to do for a few hours.

First, while he had the patience for it, he took care of some of those boring, tedious chores that just needed to be done, to make sure he had the gold to buy shit and so on. _Kurt might like this part_ , he thought, ferrying weird ingredients back and forth for a quest he’d been avoiding for weeks now. It had the same kind of simple, repetitive motion that some people, his boyfriend included, said they found soothing. Like when Kurt would sit on the couch and idly trace over every line of a picture in Noah’s textbook with a pen. Maybe he could sort of slip Kurt into the game with this sort of thing, give his hands something to do when he got fidgety.

It didn’t take Noah long to get bored. Time to go and _do_ something, find people to kill things with, throw some magic around. He wasn’t really paying attention to who was volunteering to join in until the last slot filled. He knew that name; not just in the vague, oh-that-sounded-familiar way you sometimes recognized names, but actually _knew_ it. For the record, _Brightstar93_ was kind of a dumb username, and it sounded like the guy made it when he was like thirteen, but hell, having made an account that young would actually explain why he was so good, now.

And he _was_ good. Mostly, Noah knew this because, in occupying similar spaces of the same world, he’d occasionally seen the distinctive form rampaging through the woods, chopping down bears before Noah could get a shot at them, and he’d thought, _wow, kind of an asshole_. But he’d also heard other people talking, and apparently the guy was fantastic in a fight. He was also sort of a mystery, didn’t talk, which made Noah think maybe he was a she and didn’t want anyone bugging her. Either way, he was excited to see Star Guy (Girl, whatever) in action.

It was pretty awesome.

They weren’t exactly what you’d call a seamless unit (the price Noah paid for not joining a regular party), and he was pretty sure he did something to piss off the support (oops), but damn if the things he’d heard about Brightstar93 weren’t true. Dude was way good at this; they had no problem clearing through the caves, even with Noah being extra careful because he couldn’t really count on healing. He let out a loud whoop when they dropped a whole circle of creatures at once thanks to some very good timing, and then quieted himself immediately when he remembered that Kurt was working in the other room.

He was just looking around, congratulating himself on a job well done, when something moved along the side of his screen. Noah turned, and caught a glimpse of the creature right before it was cut down by a familiar intimidating figure.

_Brightstar93: you need to watch more carefully_

Well, shit. What did he say to that? Also, _hah_ , no one was ever going to believe this dude _talked_ to him.

Noah was giddy through the end, which didn’t take much longer, as the group dispersed back to wherever they came from. He closed down the game afterward, because what the hell else was he going to do today that would top _that_?

Kurt edged out of the bedroom a few minutes later, scrubbing at his hair like he always did after he’d worked on a paper for too long. He’d notice it before too long and have to go to the bathroom to fix it. In the meantime, he smiled at Noah and went over to join him on the couch. “Have fun?” he asked. “Sure sounded like it.”

Noah grinned sheepishly. “Sorry ‘bout that. You get your thing done?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. And yours?”

“Pretty awesome, actually. Really.” He ran a hand over Kurt’s arm.

“Mm. We should get dinner.”

Glancing at the clock, Noah raised his eyebrows at the time. “Shit, you’re right. We got leftovers?”

Kurt stood up. “I think so.”

“Hey.” Noah tugged at Kurt’s arm a little. “Seriously, you should try playing sometime. I keep telling you.”

Kurt smiled and leaned over, dropping a kiss on top of Noah’s head before he pulled away. “Maybe someday.”


	3. Day 3- Anonymous Love Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Combining today's trope with Space!AU because I didn't see that one on the list, even though it's obviously super important. This one kind of got away from me, folks.

The first time Puck found one of the notes, stuffed into his locker in the shower room, he didn’t think for a moment about translating it himself, just pulled a shirt over his damp torso and went down the hall to knock on Kurt’s door. It was, he figured, about 30% laziness — because if he was already best friends with the ship’s resident linguist, why should he bother pulling out his computer and doing it himself? — and 70% to see the expression of fond exasperation on Kurt’s face when he was given the note.

“Puck, this is the second most common language on the ship,” Kurt sighed, holding out the note for his inspection. Puck checked it again, but it still just looked like weird, geometric scribbles. The same sort of scribbles that he’d seen all over the ship underneath Common Tongue, sure, but he’d never been great with languages. “Do you even know what system this is from?”

“Thought that was your job, Mr. Intergalactic Relations.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt you to know a thing or two about cultural variety, too, just in case you ever emerge from the engineering bay.”

“Na, I like it down there. Machines are easier than people.” He thrust the note back toward Kurt. “So, what’s it say?”

“My first guess would be someone warning you they’re going to write up a complaint if you don’t stop comparing them unfavorably to engines,” Kurt grumbled, but he did look over the note. His eyebrows rose at the words.

“Well?” Puck asked, even as Kurt’s confusion seemed to resolve a moment later.

Kurt shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“What, is it a secret or something?” It was in _his_ locker, Puck thought. It wasn’t nothing.

Kurt opened his mouth, paused, and grinned, which was very distracting for several seconds because Puck loved it when he smiled. “Actually, it _is_.” He waved the note through the air, smiling wider with every second. “Guess what, Puck? Someone _likes_ you.”

“What,” Puck said.

And that was how it started.

Every few days or so, a new note would appear in his locker, pushed through the slot and folded in half, and Puck would walk down the hall (usually still dripping from the shower) and shove it into Kurt’s face. Had he discovered this thing on his own, he might have kept it to himself to spare the embarrassment, but if Kurt already knew, he might as well take advantage of the solidarity. Kurt was pretty cool about it.

The notes weren’t that bad, really; a weird mix between sentiments that sounded like they belonged in a middle school (‘you make my day brighter’) and compliments that he would _always_ appreciate (‘you’ve got a really nice butt’). So it wasn’t like Puck was annoyed or anything, just… increasingly frustrated. And kind of guilty, honestly, because if whoever it was would just talk to him in person, he could let them down easy. Not that he wasn’t flattered, but he happened to be in love with someone already.

And that someone happened to be the one translating all these anonymous love notes.

It occurred to Puck that he really hadn’t thought his life out very well.

But, shit, _you_ try hanging out with Kurt every day for months at a time, flying through space in a cramped ship on ‘diplomatic missions,’ listening to him speak fifty different languages, and not fall for him a little. It had to be an epidemic. Along with infecting the ship, Kurt seemed determined to spread it to alien species.

“It’s just a few days, Puck.” Kurt sat down on his bed, shooing Puck off.

“I thought that was the point of this ship,” Puck grumbled, scooting backwards a bit but refusing to move off the bed. “We’re small enough to land on the planets and get all personal and shit.”

With a despairing look at the water stains spreading across his blankets (Puck was once again fresh from the shower), Kurt sighed and gave up. “Most of the time, yes, but this one doesn’t have much of a place to land. It’s not like we need every single crew member for contact, either. Easier for you to stay in orbit.”

Puck opened his mouth, ready to make yet another argument that he’d brought up every time before now they’d been in this situation, but Kurt beat him to it, because apparently he was predictable.

“And the translators are _not_ infallible, and they don’t have any information on culture, and this is my _job_ , Puck.”

“Fine.” Puck flopped onto his back, rubbing his fingers absently along the edges of today’s note (someone on this ship liked his smile, it seemed). “But don’t expect me to be pleasant about it.”

“Of course not,” Kurt soothed, patting his hand before standing up again to check on his comm device, totally oblivious to the warmth spreading through Puck’s body from the brief contact.

Puck thought about it for days, holed up in the engine rooms long past his normal hours while Kurt was away on land. It was stupid, wasn’t it, to get this attached? Meanwhile, there was someone around who actually liked him, and he wasn’t even trying to figure out who it was. He was sure he could narrow it down; after all, it had to be a guy to get into the locker room all the time, and there were only so many people on the ship who used that language…

The next note appeared in his locker the same day Kurt was due back, and instead of waiting, Puck decided that, for once, he’d figure it out on his own. He went back to his own room and sat on his bed, pulling up the translator and trying to find the right symbols in an alphabet that all looked kind of the same from his point of view. Kurt was right, the translator wasn’t perfect, but even with that in mind the sentence it spat out _had_ to be wrong.

_Thank you again for your the use._

Okay, weird. He pulled out one of the earlier notes from his bedside table, smoothing it out to compare. Some of the symbols looked the same, or at least similar, but some were clearly different. He picked a word at random and typed it into the program.

_Hairbrush_

Okay, seriously. Was that supposed to be ‘hair’? Because even if it was, he didn’t have much of _that_ , either, and he couldn’t remember any of the notes mentioning it before. He was still puzzling over the whole thing when Kurt popped his head into the door frame, looking exhausted but smiling all the same, the manically excited smile he always used when he’d worn out his tongue trying to make sounds the human tongue wasn’t meant to make.

“You will never guess what this planet does for their marriage ceremonies.”

It was distracting, but only briefly, because Kurt’s rapid-fire stream of talking (apparently his mouth wasn’t completely worn out, yet) paused when he spotted the notes strewn out on the bed.

“What’s up?” Kurt frowned, lifting up one of the notes and examining it as if he expected it to have changed.

“Think my translator’s busted,” Puck said. “It says someone’s thanking me for hair products, or some shit, and— Kurt?”

“Shit,” Kurt said, and then several more words in other languages which Puck assumed meant the same thing. He looked up when he was finished, biting his lip and suddenly looking very unhappy in a way that made Puck take him by the shoulders and sit him down on the bed. “Um, sorry?”

“For what? Dude, _you_ didn’t program the things.”

“It’s not broken,” Kurt sighed. “I’ve been lying to you.”

“Oh,” Puck said. He glanced between the notes and Kurt. Well, that explained… absolutely nothing. “ _Why?_ ”

Kurt groaned, leaning forward to bury his face in his hands. “It’s the new communications officer. He’s been borrowing my hair gel and stuff for weeks — I wouldn’t have said yes but he’s been so _nice_ about it — and I guess he decided to leave notes to say thank you only your locker is right next to mine and he got them mixed up and I’ve never bothered to correct him.”

Actually, Puck could remember that, if he tried. The comm officer had walked around the ship with a fucking afro or some shit for days, and the senior officers kept threatening to shave it off until one day he’d shown up with it all completely under control. Made sense enough, but then, why wouldn’t Kurt just tell him that in the first place? Why make up an anonymous admirer, unless…

He froze, suddenly feeling very cold. Maybe he hadn’t been so subtle about his feelings after all; he’d never needed to be, before now. Maybe Kurt _knew_ Puck liked him and was trying to point him off course, oh God, oh God he was so screwed.

“So,” Puck tried again, gritting out the word through vocal chords that didn’t want to cooperate at all ( _you moron!_ they were yelling in his head, _there goes your plausible deniability, out the window and into the goddamn vacuum of space!_ ). “Uh, why?”

“I thought you need to hear it,” Kurt whispered, still speaking through his fingers. “I mean, you’re very, attractive, and wonderful, and uh, I figured I could tell you and not really _tell_ you, only it kind of got away from me and, I don’t know.”

At Puck’s silence, Kurt finally peaked out from between his fingers.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, we don’t actually have to talk about this, it’s fine. It’s just a thing. It’s not a big deal.”

Puck nodded, which had nothing to do with what he was saying, which was, “No, I think it should be.” And he kissed Kurt.

Kurt looked a little less than ecstatic when he pulled away, but okay, this was confusing for both of them. “Oh,” Kurt said. “ _Oh_ , really?”

“Shit, Kurt, I thought I was gonna have to turn someone down and then it was gonna be _really awkward_ being trapped on a ship with them for months afterward because I already wanted _you_.”

Kurt grinned shakily, and spoke up just as Puck was leaning in again, making him sway backward oddly. “I love you,” Kurt said, which was definitely worth the awkward motion. “Just, you know, so I can say it for real instead of faking a translation.”

“None of the notes said ‘I love you,’” Puck pointed out.

“Oh? Well, I do.”

“Cool.” Puck nodded fervently, already leaning back in. “Me too.”

“Cool,” Kurt said, and leaned forward to meet Puck’s mouth in the middle, wrapping an arm around Puck’s waist and pulling closer while Puck tried his level best to taste every one of those whatever-dozen languages Kurt carried around on his tongue.


	4. Day 4- Angel/Demon AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more traditional than the last couple of drabbles.

Noah breathed deep, pulling the mountain air all the way into the bottom of his lungs. It was beautiful out here, and he had nothing better to do than enjoy it all day. Power _and_ freedom, it was a heck of a combination.

“I think, traditionally, you’re only meant to have one.”

He didn’t bother to turn around at the voice. He was keeping his peaceful moment, damnit. “That’s your logic,” he said, out into the open space. “Just because you chose one, doesn’t mean I have to.”

Even without looking, he could feel the force of Kurt’s scowl. “I’m fighting a war.”

“And I’m not.” Noah shrugged. “See how that works out?”

“Well, for you.”

“Well for _you_ ,” Noah corrected. “I’m pretty sure I could take you, if we had to be fighting.”

Kurt tsked. “If that were ever true, you’re out of practice by now.”

“You wouldn’t know,” Noah sighed, and finally turned to face him. With his back to the mountains, his voice was held tight in the little valley he’d found, instead of bouncing between the rocky walls. “Desertion and rebellion are all the rage these days, Kurt. Doesn’t matter what side you’re from. Just because I was doing it before it was mainstream doesn’t mean I’d look down on you for following the crowd.”

“I can’t,” Kurt said, shaking his head so his hair shifted across his forehead. It was darker, this century. Noah wondered whether there was blood or dirt in it, something he couldn’t wash out.

“You could.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Kurt repeated. “And I wouldn’t, either. I’ve heard stories about you, lately. You’re hiding with the faerie folk, now?”

Noah scowled, shifting his eyes to the side.

“Just because you use a different name, doesn’t mean I won’t recognize you.”

“Why did you come here?” Noah growled.

Kurt tipped his head forward slightly, acknowledging. “You asked me.”

“To _stay_ , not…” He swallowed. “Humans are going to start figuring it out, soon. It’s the end of the world. I thought you might want to walk around in it for a while, before it’s gone.”

“Noah,” Kurt said sadly. “We’re going to win.”

For a moment, Noah wished it were true. He closed his eyes, tipping his head up toward the sun. “No. You’re not.”

When he opened his eyes again, Kurt was gone.


	5. Day 5- Bartender AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *continues to blatantly skirt around the actual point of the tropes*
> 
> *content warning: drinking to forget

Noah Puckerman had never been the sort of person who thought he’d one day just walk into a bar and stumble upon the love of his life. This was unfortunate, because he very nearly missed it when it happened.

Officially, the reason he’d come to the bar was to get drunk and forget about the latest letter Shelby had sent him, not to meet people or have a night on the town. His first drink order got him a sideways look, and so did the second, so next he went with a beer instead of a double anything, twisting off the cap with deliberate caution. His plan was to distract himself from his fuck-ups, not to pass out on the floor of the bar.

“Slowing down, are we?” the bartender said, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

Noah looked up from his drink and into a pair of _very_ bright eyes. They must have been, if he could see them even through the persistent gloom of the bar (he could hardly even get the tips of his fingers in focus, though that might have been a little bit from the alcohol, too). This wasn’t any of the regular guys who worked the bar here; Noah had figured he’d been here enough to know them all, but maybe this guy was new. “Uh, I guess,” he finally answered.

“Well, that’s good,” the guy said. He shrugged. “I really didn’t want to be stern about cutting you off, y’know?”

Noah nodded. “’M okay.”

The guy smiled, already turning to take an order from a girl halfway down the bar. Noah managed to finish the rest of the beer before he came back, which is less a testament to the guy being slow as it is to Noah’s poor decisions.

“You gonna want another one?” The guy was running a wary eye over him, obviously not done assessing whether Noah was going to be any trouble tonight.

“Yeah, I am,” Noah replied, challenging. He was paying, wasn’t he?

“Hmm.” The guy leaned forward, elbows on the counter. “Stand up for a second.”

Noah did, because it clearly wasn’t worth the argument. “You want me to walk a straight line, too?”

“Nope,” the guy said, apparently satisfied, since he was already headed to grab another beer. “You don’t have to walk home straight, you just have to walk home.”

“You sure?” Noah said. He took his beer, but didn’t open it. “I might not be able to find the door.”

The guy laughed at that, though Noah couldn’t quite tell whether it was kind or just to humor him, since the light was too low to see his expression well. It sounded kind, at least. “Well, I can help you that far,” the guy said. “Just promise you won’t stumble into the street or something, because then I’d feel bad.”

Noah grinned. “Promise.”

After that, the guy had to go back and help another couple down the bar, leaving Noah to pick the label from his bottle. It took him another minute to remember to open it. Yeah, maybe taking it slow wasn’t a bad idea.

He nursed two more beers through the rest of the night before giving up and going home. The bartender came back to check on him every so often, but he was working, and Noah had hit the point where he was drunk enough that sitting alone was really depressing. He paid up and stood from his seat, wavering just a little.

“Hey,” the bartender said, holding out a hand like he expected to be able to catch Noah from the wrong side of the bar. “You _are_ okay, right? I know I was joking about it earlier, but I can call you a cab…”

“Na.” Noah waved him off. “’M all set. My place isn’t far.”

“Hmm.”

Yeah, Noah thought. Time to go home. He had work tomorrow; that’d take his mind off of things.

As it turned out, work was not the best distraction available to him. Sure, it was fine enough, but even as early as the next day, still nursing a headache, Noah found himself dealing with the very confusing fact that he was seeing the bartender _everywhere_.

This wasn’t the kind of ‘everywhere’ you got when you’d just broken up with a girlfriend and you kept bumping into her at the supermarket and the bus stop; this was a very weird kind of ‘everywhere’ that apparently involved finding the guy’s face on posters and buses and billboards. The first time it happened, Noah caught a glimpse of the bus out of the corner of his eye and figured he was seeing things. It was the poster in the subway that made him realize that the bartender was kind of a dead ringer for one of the stars in that West Side Story revival movie.

Seriously, it was a _weird_ likeness. Granted, he hadn’t gotten a perfect look at the bartender, given the bad lighting and his own concentration on the drinks in his hands, but still. He’d almost think they were the same person, except this guy on the posters obviously had an acting career which wouldn’t call for a second job as a bartender. The eyes looked so familiar, though.

‘Kurt Hummel,’ as he found when he actually read one of the posters, followed him around for the whole week. Though none of the signs convinced him even slightly to see the movie, they did ensure that the bartender stayed fixed in his mind. He’d been a nice guy, Noah remembered. Really nice. And those _eyes_ …

His plan had been to wait for the weekend, because he was certain he’d already come off enough like a problem drinker without showing up on weekday nights and because it seemed like the guy was working Friday nights, but Noah only made it to Thursday before he caved and returned to the bar right after work. At least he could ask around, maybe find out the guy’s name.

Finn was stacking glasses when Noah walked in, the bar area still mostly clear since the rush hadn’t come in yet. That worked out well for Noah, since Finn was the one he’d talked to most anyway. Finn even grinned and greeted him when he saw Noah walk in, waving him to one of the stools in front of the bar, which Noah slid into easily.

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“Good, yeah. Uh, I don’t want anything,” he said quickly, as Finn reached automatically for Noah’s favorite beer.

Finn raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“Got a question for you, actually. ‘S there a new guy working here, now? ‘Cause I was here Friday night, and I’ve never seen that dude before.” _And now I see him all the fucking time_ , Noah thought.

“New guy…” Finn frowned. “I dunno what— Oh! Friday night?” He smiled confidently when Noah nodded. “Yeah, right. Na, it’s no one new. That was my brother, Kurt.”

Brother. Noah mentally slammed on some breaks, readjusted as best he could. Okay, so he might have to explain it a little different to Finn, then. Not that he was planning on saying _I’ve been thinking about his eyes all week_ , anyway, but a little extra caution couldn’t hurt when they were talking about someone’s family.

“He used to work here, actually. Got me my job, too. He doesn’t anymore, though. He was just covering for me for a night. I used to take his shifts on short notice when he had to run out for auditions, so he’s doing it for me, now.”

“Oh yeah, auditions.” Noah remembered, now. “How’re those going?”

Finn grinned and launched into a full explanation, which Noah heard only the first sentence of because his mind had once again come to a full stop (and he was going to start getting mental whiplash if he didn’t calm the fuck down soon). Auditions. And Finn had said his brother’s name was Kurt, hadn’t he? The guy on the posters was Kurt…

“Hey, Finn? You left your keys at home.”

Finn broke off and turned to the door, and Noah followed suit. He inhaled sharply.

“Oh, thanks, Kurt. I— Noah?”

Shit, it _was_ him. Standing in the open doorway, with the outside light illuminating his features, the man who’d just entered was obviously the one Noah had seen on all the posters lately. He was also, obviously, the man who’d served Noah his drinks last week, because his eyes lit up with recognition and he asked, without missing a beat, “I guess you _did_ get home okay, huh?”

“Uh, yeah,” Noah said, no better at conversation while sober when he was assaulted by those eyes, apparently.

Kurt walked over to the bar, sliding Finn’s keys to him across the counter and sinking down into the stool next to Noah’s. “Glad to hear it. You left so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to make sure. Maybe I could buy you a drink. You know, to celebrate.”

“Not worried I’ll have too much?” Noah said, ignoring the way Finn rolled his eyes and walked away.

Kurt shrugged. “You look better today.” He tilted his head a little closer to Noah. “And you did say your place was close, didn’t you?”

Noah felt a grin tugging the corners of his mouth. “I did.”


	6. Day 6- Spin the Bottle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who've known me for a while may remember that I've already written spin-the-bottle fic! About [3.5k words of it](http://greenglowsgold.livejournal.com/14186.html), actually.
> 
> So in an effort to make this one different, I made it into a College!AU.

Kurt watched the bottle spin around and around the circle, scraping against the wood floor until it came to rest pointing at a gorgeous girl with black hair and a low-cut top. When he looked up at her, she winked, and leaned forward amidst the whoops and cheering of the rest of the circle to plant a kiss on his lips.

Kurt tried not to make his sigh obvious when he sat back. Nothing against this girl — Sasha, he thought her name was — but he’d been playing this game for a while now and only ever seemed to land on the girls in the circle. He’d been excited, at first, to take advantage of the equal opportunity version of this game that he’d never found in high school, but it seemed like fate and this Angry Orchard bottle had it in for him. He watched maybe-Sasha’s next spin land on the taller girl sitting across the circle, and stumbled to his feet as they leaned in.

“Be right back,” he muttered to Santana, who immediately threw out a hand to save the empty seat next to her for his eventual return.

“Yeah, you better be!” she called over her shoulder as he walked away.

He would come back, of course. She’d begged and bribed to get him to this party; he was stuck for the rest of the night. He decided to grab another drink, though. Maybe there was a minimum alcohol level for the bottle spinning the way he wanted it to.

All the punch was gone by the time he got back to the tables, leaving only the really shitty brands of beer that were cheap enough to be bought in bulk by college students even though they tasted terrible. Kurt’s face scrunched up a little at the thought. God, he was going to have to put _effort_ into this.

Someone nudged him from behind. “You don’t look happy, dude.”

Kurt turned to see who’d spoken and found a boy about his height, leaning in to talk over the noise. He looked a little familiar, but Kurt couldn’t place him (did he sit in the back row of an art history class or something?). The downside of being on a campus with several thousand students, he supposed.

The guy continued before Kurt could answer: “Ohhh, I get it.” He nodded toward the table, empty but for poor-brand beer. “Yeah, not the best. Here.” He held out one of the two red cups in his hands. “This was supposed to be for this girl I was talking with, but I think she booked it, so.”

“Uh, thanks.” Kurt reached out to gingerly take the cup, surprised by the offer.

“Yeah, no problem. The punch always goes fast.” The guy considered the cup left in his hand, found it empty, and tossed it into the nearest garbage can. He grabbed a bottle of beer from the table and held out a hand. “I’m Puck.”

“Kurt,” he said, returning the gesture.

“Kurt, huh? I saw you over there,” Puck said, pointing at the circle of students with their attention still fixed on the bottle. “Doing pretty awesome, actually. I think by the time you leave, you’ll have kissed every hot girl at this party.”

Kurt snorted softly before he could stop himself, and tried too late to disguise it by taking a sip of his drink.

Puck raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, I’m… not sure what I said wrong?”

“I’m gay,” Kurt said. He wasn’t going to dance around the subject.

“Oh. _Oh_.” Puck considered this. “Dude, that _sucks_. I mean,” he continued quickly at Kurt’s flat look. “It sucks that you’re only getting to kiss chicks if you’re— I don’t have a problem with— Ugh, sorry, that came out wrong.”

“It’s alright.” The relief on Puck’s face when Kurt forgave him would have been enough to convince him that Puck had meant well, anyway. “I’m just having bad luck tonight, I guess.”

“Really bad,” Puck agreed, looking back at the circle. When Kurt followed his gaze, Santana was staring back, running her eyes back and forth between the two of them and then smirking at Kurt. He scowled back. “That group’s gotta be almost half guys, and you didn’t hit one of them?”

“Nope,” Kurt said dispassionately, taking a swig of punch. “My new theory is that I need to be drunk to have any sort of luck at this game.”

“Huh.” Puck looked down at the bottle he was rolling between his hands. “Maybe it’s a break the ice sort of thing. You’ve built up such a long string of kissing girls, it’d have to be really dramatic, right?” He tilted the bottle back and forth again, then lifted it up to point at Kurt. “Right,” he said, and gave absolutely no notice before he leaned forward and kissed Kurt.

Kurt was too surprised to even jump back. Not that he would; it felt _nice_. It lasted only a couple of seconds before Puck drew back, licking his lips thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That felt pretty good. Okay, you wanna try it now?”

“Buh,” said Kurt, or something like it, but he didn’t fight it when Puck’s hand slipped into his and led him back to the circle. Santana smiled wolfishly at them both when they sat down.

“You can take my turn,” she said to Puck. “New player and everything.”

Puck took the bottle from her hands with a grateful smile. “Alright, then! Let’s see how our luck’s doing now.”

Kurt watched the bottle spin across the wood grain, counted three turns before it stopped.


	7. Day 7- Stuck Somewhere Together in Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, guys, I know this is a day late! Yesterday was busy and confusing. Today's actual drabble will be up in a bit.

The storm warning came on over the news, after the movie they’d been watching, about two hours too late to be useful. By that point, they may as well have just looked out the window. Puck groaned at the sight.

“Fuck.”

When Kurt joined him at the window, he found he agreed with that statement. The snow wasn’t that deep, but there seemed to be a thin layer of ice covering everything. More worrying than that was the hint of wind he could see barrelling through the streets, kicking up whatever happened to be outside, which wasn’t much. It looked sharp and freezing.

“Well, that’s gonna be fun to walk home in.” Puck nudged Kurt in the side. “Hey, you’re lending me a scarf, right? And a hat. Ooh, hey, can I have that green one?”

“No,” Kurt said automatically, and then, “And you’re not walking home, Puck, obviously; I think it’s negative degrees out there. You can just stay the night.”

Puck didn’t answer for a minute. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’ll be better in the morning, right? Finn can lend you some sweatpants.” Kurt turned from the window to look for his brother, already on a mission, and nearly stumbled halfway there when he realized why Puck had hesitated: because they had never actually spend the night together before, and that made this a first.

Well, he couldn’t take it back now. Not that he wanted to, but jeez, he hadn’t even meant it, and he was kind of ashamed at how bad he was turning out to be at romance. It was embarassing. He was never telling Rachel.

“Hey, Finn,” he said, knocking on the door frame. “Can I borrow a pair of sweatpants?”

“Uh, sure,” Finn said, getting up and snagging a pair from the laundry basket full of folded clothes he hadn’t bothered to put away yet. He handed it to Kurt. “Why, though?”

But Kurt was already leaving. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. He would explain later, after he’d dealt with his boyfriend.

That part was actually pretty easy. Puck seemed to be under the impression that he’d done something in particular to merit the invitation, but couldn’t remember what it was, and didn’t want to ask in case Kurt told him to walk home after all. Which Kurt wouldn’t, though he might make Puck move to the couch, and even that would be a last resort. It was chilly now, even inside the apartment, with the cool of night settling around them and their body heat petering out from lack of activity. Kurt found himself appreciating the extra warmth under the blankets, even from the other side of the bed. This was turning out to be a pretty good idea, one he’d claim to have had in total clarity, if later asked.

“Hey, Kurt,” Puck said quietly, drawing Kurt out of his train of thought.

“Hmm?”

Puck shuffled just a little closer. “You have really weird sheets.”

A laugh puffed out of Kurt, quiet in the dark. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. They’re light. Don’t you get cold? I’ve seen you outside in the winter; you don’t retain heat.”

“That’s what the comforter is for,” Kurt replied, burrowing under it pointedly. “Also,” he added, feeling braver, “you.”

Puck hummed, moving in even closer. “Totally.”


	8. Day 8- Sex Pollen AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate the sex pollen trope. HATE. This drabble contains no actual pollen or sex, and only a very loose interpretation of the trope. (HATE.)
> 
> *content warning: recreational drug use (marijuana)

“You lied to me,” Kurt accused.

Puck frowned, glancing straight down at where Kurt’s head lay in his lap. He met Kurt’s narrowed eyes and asked, “How?”

“You told me food would taste amazing.” Kurt pokes Puck in the chest, almost missing due to the awkward angle. “I’m still waiting on amazing.”

“The cheesecake is good,” Puck protested, popping another bit into his mouth at the thought.

Kurt shook his head. “Of course it’s good, cheesecake is always good, but you said _amazing_ , and I don’t feel that amazed.”

Rolling his eyes, Puck grabbed the joint from the plate and offered it to Kurt. “Geez, _pick-y_.”

Kurt gave the offer a soft _humph_ , but reached out to take it anyway, inhaling once before he handed it back and let his arm flop to the side. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

Puck grinned wide enough to feel the stretch at the edges of his face (which felt _weird_ ). “I know, right?”

“You’re probably like, a terrible influence, or something.”

“Mmhmm.” Puck ran a hand absently through Kurt’s hair, reveling in being able to mess it up the wrong way without being reprimended. Any other time, he would have been slapped away instantly. “Do you care?”

Chewing his lip as if giving the question deep thought, Kurt waited a moment befrore sighing and answering, “No.”

“Good. So, what d’you wanna do, then? If you’re not so interested in food.”

Kurt snuggled deeper into Puck’s lap, pressing his nose into Puck’s stomach so that his words became muffled. “Nothing that requires leaving your room.”

“Yeah,” Puck said. “I got that.” He ruffled Kurt’s hair up again, straight back, and this time got a little squirm and what could have been an attempt at a glare, though he couldn’t tell with Kurt’s face still mashed into his t-shirt. Still, he got the message: be careful. He smoothed Kurt’s hair back down and continued with softer strokes.

They were quiet for a minute or two before Puck heard a mumbling sound coming from his stomach.

“What?”

Kurt shifted his head backward with what looked like great effort. “I said: we should have sex.”

“…What? Really?”

Kurt shrugged. “Yeah. We should try it like this. Maybe it’s like the food, except it actually works.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sounds good,” Puck agreed, on board with this plan as soon as he realized how stupid it would be to remain otherwise.

“And we’re already on a bed,” Kurt added, surging up to meet Puck’s lips.

(Okay, so he actually missed the first time and knocked kind of hard into Puck’s cheekbone, but they got it right the second time and, yeah, it was awesome.)


	9. Day 9- Matching Soulmate Markings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang on a minute, I've already written- Oh, wait. _Matching._

Kurt forcibly removed his hand from his coffee cup and tapped a rhythm on the table to remind himself not to take another drink. It had gone cold by now, his own fault for showing up so early, but it was probably just as well; he was jumpy enough without the extra caffeine. Why the hell were they meeting in a coffee shop, anyway? Puck didn’t even _like_ coffee.

At the tail end of that thought, Kurt felt his restless hand starting to inch toward the cup again, and snatched it back. He moved it instead to rub at his left forearm through the fabric of his shirt. He imagined he could feel the texture of the letters there, but even if he couldn’t, the image was clear and solid in his mind: _Noah Puckerman_ spelled out in small, black letters, sealed into his skin. Just like it had been for nine years.

Blowing out a strong breath, Kurt leaned he head forward into his hands. _Get a grip, get a grip_ , he thought. This wasn’t so hard.

“Kurt?”

Kurt jerked his head up instantly, and he found Puck standing next to the table, looking down at him with one hand raised in what could have been a wave or an attempt to touch his shoulder, or neither. Puck, Kurt noticed, was also wearing long sleeves, despite the summer heat outside. Air conditioning was the universal benefit of Starbucks, even if you didn’t enjoy the products.

Unsurprisingly, Puck didn’t bother getting anything to drink before sitting down. “You okay?” he said first, instead of ‘Hello,’ or ‘How are you.’

“Huh?” Kurt replied, thrown.

“Your head.” Puck gestured in it’s direction, and Kurt remembered that he’d been clutching it only seconds before.

“Oh, yes, um. Just a headache,” he lied. “It’s hot outside. I’m a little dehydrated, I think.” He took a pointed sip of his coffee, trying not to let the grimace show on his face at the less-than-pleasant taste. “How are you?”

“Good,” Puck said, though it sounded like a question. “I mean, yeah. The city’s different, but… good.”

“Good.” _Say something else, say something else._

Puck cleared his throat. “You’re still writing?”

“Yes,” Kurt said quickly, glad to have a topic to latch onto. “The magazine’s doing really well, and I’m, I’m working on a play, too. It’s just for fun, but. I’m enjoying it.”

“That’s great. Bet you meet a lot of people doing that.” Puck delived the line casually, almost well enough to slip right by, but of course Kurt had been waiting for something like this.

He took another sip of his cold coffee (gross) to give himself a moment’s delay. “No one special,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Puck said, voice just a little strained. “Uh, me neither.” He paused for a moment, long enough that Kurt thought he was done. “I—”

“Puck,” Kurt said at the same time, nearly stopped when he realized they were speaking over each other, then barreled forward anyway, for the sake of getting it out. “Puck. This— coming here today. Did you want to talk about…?”

“ _No_. No.” Puck held up both hands, a gesture of surrender. “It’s not that… I’m not expecting anything, Kurt.”

“Because if you did,” Kurt continued, rushing through the words. “I mean, would it be that crazy?”

Puck froze, clearly unprepared to hear that, and Kurt felt like kicking himself. Crap, he’d messed up. The first conversation they’d had in person in _years_ , and…

“You think it wouldn’t be?”

Kurt swallowed. He was going to get mental whiplash from all the course correction. “Maybe,” he said, which he figured was only about 50% a lie, because his throat closed over any more than that. On the other hand, he was Kurt Hummel, and that name had been on Puck’s arm for nearly a decade, and he was good at going all in. “No. It wouldn’t.”

Puck gave a weird little laugh, and a baby hanging over the shoulder of a woman walking by echoed it, reaching out grasping hands as it passed. Puck didn’t pay it any attention, just leaned forward onto the table so that it tilted to the end of a loose screw. “It’s just, I know it didn’t work so well before. I know I didn’t—”

“I think it was bad timing,” Kurt said quietly. “We’re not teenagers anymore. Twenty-five has got to come with some perspective.” He had to believe the problem had been their markings showing up midway through high school, when neither of them had any idea what the hell they were doing. What was the line: if you have chemistry…?

“So you’re thinking, what, the universe had it right the first time?” Puck reached out like he was looking for the mark on Kurt’s arm, but pulled himself back at the last minute, landing on the edge of Kurt’s hand instead. Kurt tightened his fingers around Puck’s hand.

“Maybe we just needed to play catch up. Worth a try, right?” Even when they’d crashed and burned, it had still been somehow _more_ than he’d ever managed since.

Puck smiled, wide and little shaky. “I missed you, y’know.”

“Me too,” Kurt said, ducking his head to watch their fingers intertwine.


	10. Day 10- Deserted Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had literally no ideas for a straight-forward version of this prompt, so this... was the next... logical... conclusion?

Storms were just terrible on his feathers, Kurt thought, tilting back to clean out flecks of mud from the red and blue patterns with his beak. Sure, they made the trees smell nice and fresh the morning after, but the taste of muck made that harder to enjoy.

“I keep tellin’ you I could help,” Puck muttered, wiggling a hand in his direction. Fingers, yes, and even a thumb that could be useful, but Kurt didn’t trust anyone else with his feathers. Not to mention, Puck wasn’t entirely clean himself, dirt from last night’s rain and wind mixing in his hair, darkening the white.

“I’m all set, thanks.”

Puck shrugged, dropped backwards off the branch before catching himself with a tail wrapped around the limb. “Your loss,” he called from upside-down.

There was a _thud_ in the distance.

“What was that?” Kurt’s head jerked up from his cleaning ritual. “It wasn’t thunder, was it?” He couldn’t take another storm so soon.

“Na, couldn’t be. Didn’t sound like it.” Puck let himself drop onto a lower branch, catching with one hand. “C’mon.” He swung to the next tree, moving on through the forest.

Kurt sighed and shook out his wings, probably as clean as he could get without dunking under the waterfall anyway, and took off after him. They heard another _thud_ and shifted their route slightly, heading straight until they broke free of the treeline and saw the beach.

And, holy crap, a _human_.

There had been humans there before, in groups, with machines and things, talking incessantly about the ‘variety of wildlife’. Not in a long time, though, and never one on its own like this. It looked upset, kind of tattered, and it was beating a bit of wood against some sort of broken structure. It was also yelling, but as they watched, it fell silent, and slid down to sit on the sand.

“What’s wrong with it?” Puck said.

Instantly, the human’s head whipped up to look directly at them, and Kurt nearly shrunk back into the trees, but he’d already been seen. “What the— Did that monkey just _talk?_ ”

Kurt whacked Puck in the stomach with a wing, glaring. “Now look what you’ve done.”


	11. Day 11- Meet in a Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreams are weird as heck though

Sometimes Noah has a vague awareness that this isn’t real, that he’s dreaming. Sometimes it’s not there, and he’s just tugged along, following the flow.

Sometimes he recognizes his surroundings, sometimes it’s that undefined background that dreams often have. Sometimes it’s a mall, or his old high school, or Paris, or Hogwarts. There’s very little consistency, there’s no _story_ , just a few recurring characters.

The man with the blue-green eyes is his favorite. He never gets a name, though Noah knows him (it’s a dream thing), and remembers him. It’s sad sometimes when he knows that it’s a dream, and the man isn’t real.

This is not one of those times.

“It’s so hot out,” Noah says, even though it doesn’t feel hot, and he curls an arm around the man’s waist to pull him closer. His head is in the man’s lap, a hand running through the hair he doesn’t have.

“It is,” the man agrees. His face is tilted so far up toward the sun that Noah can’t even see it well. His legs are piled underneath him, sprawled on the bright green grass of an endless field. “Are you tired?”

Noah shakes his head. “We should go for a swim.”

The man doesn’t answer, but stands up fluidly, in time with Noah. They’re on a bench at the last moment, so when they stand they go up straight, and don’t have to scramble to their feet. Noah looks down and his shirt is gone, so he slips forward toward the pool. The man is an impression behind him; Noah can tell he’s still there.

The pool is wonderful (the temperature doesn’t change). Noah can feel the water sliding all across his skin but it doesn’t stick, whenever he pokes his head out it stays dry. In the background, he’s aware that there are other people in the pool, but they never seem to get near him, except for the man.

His hand reaches out blindly and he finds the man, grasping back. The man pulls until he’s pulled under, under a layer of water. Noah knows he’ll need to breathe eventually, but not now. The man wraps around him, and Noah’s vision narrows to those eyes, open under the water, bright green-blue against the colorless background of the pool. The water surrounds him and the man surrounds him and the color surrounds him, and

Everything is fading except the eyes and the

Pressure of arms and Noah is loved, loved,

Loved,

Awake, and empty

The room is empty.

His eyes aren’t even open, but he can tell. It’s there in the feeling of sheets that lie so lightly on his body, and the stillness of the air. When he does open his eyes, something beeps, someone comes in, and they’re very excited, and Noah doesn’t know why.

 

They have to explain it to him several times, and he still doesn’t really believe it. Not the coma part, he believes that (why else would he be in the hospital with all this crap beeping around him?). The part where it was only for three days. It felt like… hell, half a lifetime. Certainly, long enough to fall a little in love with a nameless man his mind came up with to soothe him or something, who doesn’t exist, and Noah can’t escape knowing that, now.

He’s thinking about it (again, damnit), so caught up that he doesn’t even notice when the man walks into the room. Noah freaks out a little.

 _Calm down_ , he reminds himself. He can see the man’s scrubs, now that he’s looking lower than the eyes. So this guy works at the hospital, right, and he’s probably been in and out of Noah’s room this whole time and Noah… heard him talking, or opened his eyes for a minute and doesn’t remember it. He knows that comas have levels, or something.

“Hey,” he says, because the doctors are all worried about his responsiveness. He’s tired a lot, but he feels very awake right now.

“Hello.” The man smiles, and Noah aches a little. “My name is Kurt.”

‘Are you single, Kurt?’ he doesn’t ask. It’s creepy, he reminds himself, to have subconsciously noticed a nurse who checked your vitals every so often and then dreamed about him enough to fall in love. So he asks, “Have you told me that before?”

Kurt looks confused. “No?”

“I mean, not when I was awake,” Noah clarifies. “It’s gotta be weird, checking on someone who’s asleep for a few days and then suddenly they want to talk to you. I’d feel weird.” Wow, shut up.

Smiling now that he understands, Kurt shakes his head a little. “Well, you’re in luck. I’ve been away this weekend, just back today. So this is the first time I’m meeting you, and you’re doing fine so far.” He turns a little, still smiling, checking on one of those machines.

He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s just said something impossible.

(Noah doesn’t keep up the good impression, mostly because he’s stunned into silence for several minutes, and the next thing he’s able to work out of his mouth is that Kurt’s eyes are beautiful. So, yeah. This is gonna go great. Also, what the hell.)


	12. Day 12- Arranged Marriage AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How to Train Your Dragon 2 came out today. Everything else seems wildly unimportant.

“Babe, you’ve just gotta tell him.”

Kurt exhaled shakily, leaning back into the hands that rested reassuringly on his shoulders. “What if he doesn’t take it well?” he worried, wringing his hands. “He could— He could break off relations, or—”

“He won’t do that.” Puck moved one hand to rub the back of Kurt’s neck. He was frustratingly calm about all this. “Our families have been visiting regularly for years, since before we were born; everyone knows how important it is to keep that up.”

Kurt smiled slightly at the memories. “I enjoyed growing up with you,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want that to be _all_ I do with you. Maybe he wouldn’t cut off your kingdom, but he could cut me off from _you_.”

“He won’t. He loves you.”

“Enough to let me take a marriage that won’t produce any heirs?” Kurt challenged.

Puck shrugged. “That’s what your brother is for.”

“My _younger_ brother.”

“By eight minutes! Finn can handle the next generation, no matter who rules this one.”

“It’s just.” Kurt chewed at his lip, finding the words. “What if he says no?”

Puck finally grabbed his hands, wrenching them apart (which was just as well, because Kurt had begun to dig half-moon imprints into his palms). “If you don’t ask, it’ll kind of be a ‘no’ by default, babe.”

“Okay.” Kurt took a deep breath. “Okay. I love you.”

“Duh,” Puck said, but he smiled gently and leaned in to kiss Kurt’s forehead. “Want me to come in with you?”

Kurt shook his head. “Probably better to go in alone, for now. It’ll seem less demanding.”

“I’ll be right here.”

The doors were bigger than Kurt remembered.

The walk was longer too, and the height of Burt’s chair greater that Kurt had pictured when he’d planned this in his head. Kurt stopped a few feet short of his usual, comfortable position beside his father, but it was the only distance that seemed too close.

“Dad, I—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Burt looked up from his papers, turned his head automatically to the right and had to correct for Kurt’s new position, looking surprised by the change. “Sure,” he said, setting aside the sheef of paper. “What is it?”

Kurt took a deep breath, which obviously didn’t help at all because the words that followed were by and large gibberish. “I know I’m older and— I mean, old enough, and you’re— I’m supposed to be looking for someo— a _woman_ but I don’t… It’s not that I don’t want to— to _help_ , but I can’t…” The more he struggled, the fewer words seemed to want to come. “ _Puck_ ,” he finally said, which seemed the most important one, anyway.

Burt blinked, opened his mouth, and, “Oh, thank God.”

Kurt had a counterargument prepared, and it took him a second to realized that (luckily, because it wouldn’t have made it out) he wouldn’t need it. “Thank… God?” he said slowly.

“I thought you were about to say you’d fallen in love with that boy from the stables, or something.”

“Sam?” Kurt asked, wildly confused. “No, I— But… Puck,” he said again.

“You said,” Burt reminded him, smiling now, for some reason. “And thank God. You had me scared for a minute, but this is great.”

This wasn’t great. Well, no, it was. It just also made no sense.

“It’s great?” He let out a nervous laugh. “It’s great.” Kurt couldn’t believe Burt was taking it this well, but maybe he’d underestimated his father’s understanding.

“Well of course it is,” Burt said, smile still in place. “After all, you’ve been betrothed since you were five.”

Wait.

“What the f—”


	13. Day 13- Handcuffed Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In space!

“These fucking electric ones,” Kurt was grumbling, tugging hard at Puck’s wrist until he winced. “They’re so much more finicky than the regular.”

“Maybe that’s why they use them.” Puck rolled his eyes. His wrist was already sore, but he wasn’t complaining about it. “Harder to get out of.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“You— _Shit_.” Puck tugged suddenly, yanking Kurt around the corner by the handcuffs that connected them, despite Kurt’s yelp of protest. He just barely missed the blast from down the corridor, which hit the wall behind them instead and left a scorch mark. “Yeah, we gotta go. You can do your great escepe thing after we find a ship.”

“You’re piloting,” Kurt said between panted breaths as they run down the hallway.

“What? I’m on the wrong side for that!”

Kurt huffed an annoyed breath. “I can switch into the copilot’s seat after I unlock us, okay? But neither of us is going to effective at steering until we have both hands free.”

Puck didn’t have an answer for that, which unfortunately gave Kurt opportunity to keep complaining.

“Why would they handcuff us _together_ , anyway. That’s stupid.”

“Saves you the trouble of getting us out of two pairs of cuffs though, doesn’t it?”

“Please,” Kurt scoffed as they ran into the hanger. “I would’ve left you there.”

“Okay.” Puck pulled him to a stop, ignoring the scowl Kurt sent him for the twisted wrist. He couldn’t hear anyone right behind them anymore, which gave them a minute to hash this out. “I know why you’re pissed. You think I got us caught.”

“You _did_ get us caught,” Kurt hissed. “I was busy with the safe. You were supposed to be watching!”

“Just because I’m watching doesn’t mean I can stop a whole freaking team of officers with guns pointed at me. Maybe your plan was fucked up; they were expecting us.”

“Maybe _your_ plan was—”

Another blast soared over their heads; they hadn’t had as much time as he’d thought. Shit, they needed to find a ship.

“So, later?”

Kurt nodded frantically, already taking off. “Later.”


	14. Day 14- Stripper AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm a day behind.

The music was everything.

He’d tried different tactics when he danced. He’d tried making it a performance, he tried looking deep into the customers eyes and getting each one’s individual attention. He’d tried focusing on the movements, positioning himself perfectly. The most effective way to go by far, though, was just to get lost in the music.

His body knew what to do, and he knew he looked good on stage. When he sank into the music and let it guide him around, something happened, and whatever it was, customers _liked_ it. Maybe it was the easiest way to look genuinely turned on, he didn’t know. Whatever. All he had to do was throw in a few seconds of eye contact at the end and he was set. Maybe made a little less in tips on stage because he didn’t get in as close as often, but he made up for it and more when he was walking the floor afterward. Guys _saved_ their bills for when he came back around. So he stuck with this method, tried and true.

Not to mention, it was his favorite, by far the most enjoyable. He liked his job well enough, didn’t mind the eyes on every part of him while he danced, but he didn’t crave them either. He wanted to enjoy the music, feel it sink inside him. Music had always been part of his life, part of him. With his eyes closed to the stage, he was allowed to enjoy moving to the beats, even if he still had to hold back the old, ingrained urge to start singing.

He slid down the pole at his back, in his element, felt the music slip along his spine. He twisted and spun. When the beat changed, he let his eyes flutter open, because that meant the entrance of the one person who made him want to look.

The other man took place on a neighboring stage; a performer, in contrast. He watched the man grin wide at the crowd, swiveling hips enticingly before looking sideways to send him a smaller leer.

He smiled before he let his eyes slip closed again. Whatever the performance, he was the only one who’d get to touch, curled into bed that night in the dark, pressing skin against skin under the safety of covers. That was his private thing. Like the music.


	15. Day 15- Office Romance AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here everyone enjoy my leftover Jim/Dwight feels from The Office

“Yeah, no, I can definitely help you out with that, no problem— Oh, hey, you know, can I call you back? Yeah, it’ll just be a minute. Thanks.” Noah hung up as he saw Kurt start to reach for his drawer, settling back in his chair to watch.

He wasn’t disappointed. Kurt wasn’t looking at his hand as he reached in for whatever he needed, but Noah saw the look on his face when he hit it, disgust curling his lip. It was difficult to hold back a laugh as Kurt pulled the object out of the drawer: a plate of green jello, inside which hovered his stapler.

“Again, Noah?” he hissed, though despite his quiet tone, people around the room had already begun to notice and were snickering behind their hands.

“Hell, Kurt, who says it was me?”

“The fact that it’s been you the last _six times_ says it was you.” Kurt shoved the plate across onto Noah’s desk with a glare. “You got it in there, you can get it out.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Noah adopted a very sympathetic expression. “Thanks, but I had a big breakfast this morning. Dunno if I have the room for something like that right now. But, here.” He reached into his own drawer and pulled out a clean spoon, which he offered across the span of their desks.

Kurt didn’t take the spoon. Instead, he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, walking pointedly toward the door and out of the room, which descended back into an only slightly uneasy silence. Noah sighed, dropped the spoon onto his desk, and rose to follow. He shook his head at Quinn as he passed the receptionist’s desk; he’d handle it on his own.

He found Kurt in the stairwell, pacing back and forth across the tiny landing between floors. When he started down the steps, Kurt stopped his movement and turned to face the wall away from Noah, heaving a heavy, exasperated breath.

“Kurt, look, I’m sorry. I know it fucks up the stapler; I’ll clean it out, okay?”

Kurt didn’t answer.

“I’m just trying to cheer you up. You’ve been… freakishly focused on sales lately — which, yeah, our job, but still — and you’re not even—”

“Blaine’s marrying Eli,” Kurt muttered.

Noah winced. “Yeah, uh. I know.”

“They’re planning the wedding ten feet from my desk, and their flowers don’t work with their color scheme at all, and it’s _stupid_.”

“I know,” Noah said again. He laid a tentative hand on Kurt’s shoulder, which surprisingly didn’t make Kurt pull away. They stood there for a few minutes until he finally thought of something new to say. “Dating in the office sucks. Remember Quinn?”

The shoulder under Noah’s hand shrugged as Kurt made an unidentifiable noise. “Yeah, I remember. I know the rule, I just needed to learn it for myself.” He turned back around to Noah with a rueful smile, letting the hand slip away. “I’ve got it now. No more office romances.”

“Right.” Noah stepped back as Kurt moved toward the stairs again.

“Thanks, Noah,” Kurt said. “I’m taking you up on that offer to clean my stapler, but I’ll split the jello with you for lunch, okay?”

“Sure,” Noah said, watching Kurt head back up the stairs.

No office romances. He was so fucked.


	16. Day 16- Seven Minutes in Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already wrote spin-the-bottle fic and it seemed repetitive for this to be on the list as well. That's my excuse.

_One_

 

You’re warm.

A nice sort of warm, new and comfortable. Not the sort of warm you remember from hot summer days, because there’s no edge of just-too-much that threatens to come if you sit out in the sun for a few minutes too long. Not a beachy sort of warm, because there’s no humidity bogging you down. Not a warm that feels tenuous, like the temperature might drop any minute. Just a simple, constant warm, wrapping all around you, and you never want to leave.

 

_Two_

 

There aren’t any thoughts like ‘I think I left the oven on’ or ‘What will my dad do without me?’ There isn’t even the impression of those thoughts. You haven’t forgotten about these things, but even so you aren’t worried about them. Things work out, you know.

 

_Three_

 

There are people here who should be. Your mother, for one. You don’t exactly meet her, but the impression is there. You feel her brushing against the part of _this_ that is _you_. It doesn’t matter how you got here; she’s happy to see you.

 

_Four_

 

There are people here who shouldn’t be. Your father, for one. It isn’t him, though, really. It’s more of an ultra-high-def memory, so detailed and full that you’d believe it was real except that you know it isn’t. Or maybe it is real, by some definition. He’s with you, in at least one way, and he’ll be with you in another after some amount of immeasurable and unimportant time.

 

_Five_

 

There are people here you expect. Your brother. He smiles so wide you can hear it, and his hand is discernibly warm even against the background of everything else. He misses you at the same time he’s glad to see you here. He sings the harmony.

 

_Six_

 

There are people here you don’t expect. Noah. His arm curls around yours and it doesn’t feel the least bit odd. He asks you why you’ve never thought of this before, and you don’t know the answer, even though you could have been certain you knew just about everything else important (this feels important).

 

_Seven_

 

The embrace feels a long time coming, and not too late at all. It’s soft and

and

His lips are still on yours when you wake up, cold and wet and “Jesus, Kurt, are you with me?”

 

_One More_

 

The word ‘yes’ is less of a chore than it should be.


	17. Day 17- Noble/Peasant AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having computer problems the last few days, so apologies if these drabbles don't always come out on time.

Noah loved to take walks through the town. He loved it even more when he was able to ditch the guards who followed him around like ducklings with swords and surly attitudes, but he would take whatever he could get, so long as it got him out of the castle. It was stifling in there, even when it wasn’t flooded with heat from the summer, and growing moreso by the day.

Today, ‘the day’ happened to be shortly before he turned eighteen, which, lucky him, meant a lot more than it would have otherwise, since his father had been missing for a decade. His mother was, by her words, “tired of babysitting the throne.” Yeah, well. He hadn’t even sat on the damn thing for a minute, yet, and he was already tired of it too.

Which brought him back to his main point: escaping. If he only had a little while left, he was going to use them well. Slipping away from the guards was getting harder and harder and the days between him and the crown dwindled, but the fact was he knew the side streets better than most of them, having played innumerable games of hide-and-seek around the town when he was younger and his father was still ruling. Noah gave them the slip barely ten minutes out, which he figured gave him about an hour before they found him and dragged him back again.

(Really, they shouldn’t let him go out at all, if they wanted to keep him in sight. But he was the prince, and that counted for something, so if he told them he was going out, well. His mother had never bothered to say no.)

Noah hopped a fence at the back of an alley to come out the other side, near the market in the center of town. It seemed like such an open area, such an easy place to be caught, but the sheer number of people around went a long way to disguising him, especially with a hood over his head and a carefully chosen outfit in bland colors. There was too much happening here to pick out any one thing — smells and fabrics and chatter about prices — except a single musician, whom Noah was sure he’d be able to find anywhere.

The man in question had taken up a place between two stalls, singing the last notes of a common song and scanning the crowd until he found Noah’s eyes. At the end of the melody, the man nodded to the two young girls who had been watching him, gathered up his lute and his cap with a few coins, and ducked around the corner.

Noah caught up with him within the first block, ran beside him to grab his hand as they moved swiftly along.

“No one’s home,” Kurt said breathlessly. “We have, what, an hour?”

Noah nodded. After that, he’d better be found in the open, rather than waiting to be discovered in Kurt’s house.

“And after that?” Kurt asked, and Noah couldn’t even pretend not to know what he meant.

“Two weeks.”

Kurt glanced at him. “We had better make it count then.”

Noah pushed himself a little faster, forcing a smile in place of the thoughts that he would leave out of his head for the next hour.


	18. Day 18- Orphan AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The standard interpretation of Orphan AU didn't seem all that exciting? So, here's an AU crossover with the horror movie 'Orphan'.

Neither of them opened the doors when the car was parked, instead staring ahead through the window at the orphanage (or 'Home for Girls,' as they were supposed to call it) that sat with brick walls and slightly untended gardens.

“Are you sure about this?” Noah asked, though it was a little late to still be asking that question. The wary look on Kurt's face made him want to, though.

Kurt swallowed visibly, but the smile that followed seemed natural, content. “I'm sure. We always said we wanted a big family, and I know we have... More. We have more to give, right?”

Noah nodded. Between Kurt and Daniel and Max, he was still getting over his surprise at how much love he could have for all of them. But Kurt was right, they did have more. “Okay, then. Let's go.”

They were greeted at the door by a smiling woman in a habit (apparently from a very progressive church, given her lack of reaction to their clasped hands, but Noah wasn't going to tempt fate by mentioning it). “Have you been through the system before?” she asked, as she led them down a hall painted in a dull white.

“We've worked with adoption agencies before,” Kurt explained, “but this is our first experience visiting homes for children.”

“Well, this is where parents are needed most.” The Sister nodded toward an open room in which several girls were sitting in a ring for some kind of game. Noah's heart jumped – One of those could be... “Older children are always less likely to be adopted, so we always welcome prospective parents, especially those with backgrounds such as yours. Let me just find Sister Anna with your paperwork, and then if you like you can meet some of the girls?”

Noah followed along absently as Kurt nodded and answered questions and generally made a good impression for the both of them. He knew perfectly well that kids were in less demand for adoption than infants. They'd had experience with that already.

Their first two children had been their own, thanks to some very good friends and advancements in artificial insemination, but for the third, they'd gone to an agency. Of course, the thing they didn't tell you (or, they did, but they obviously didn't repeat it often enough for it to sink in) was that the mother could change her mind up to a month after she gave birth.

“Hey, uh,” Noah stuttered, realizing too late that he had kind of interrupted the nun's speech on special needs children. She didn't seem too bothered,just turned to hear his question. “Sorry. Could you point me to the bathroom?”

He took an extra minute or two in the washroom, splashing water over his face and telling himself he needed to calm down, hold it together for fuck's sake – for _Kurt's_ sake. His husband had taken it harder than he had, he knew that. And this would be fine, this would work out. The girls here didn't have relatives waiting in the wings to scoop them up and take them away; they needed a home.

It wasn't far from the bathroom back to where he'd left the Sister and Kurt, but Noah still managed to lost his way. He peeked around a few corners, trying to find something familiar (but all the walls were that same damn off-white, which wasn't helpful), before he finally found someone.

The girl was sitting alone in the room, starkly contrasting the rest of the children who had all been in groups, and was very intent on the easel in front of her.

“Hi,” Noah said from the doorway, so as not to startle her. “Do you mind if I come in?”

She glanced over her shoulder only briefly before turning back to her painting. “Of course not. There are plenty of seats.” She spoke with careful intonation, probably an attempt to correct for the heavy accent.

There certainly was not shortage of seats, Noah thought, glancing around the empty room full of child-sized desks and chairs. This girl could likely point him in the direction of the office, but as he stepped forward, he found himself staring at the painting: a tiger crouched in the midst of a dense jungle, painted in vibrant colors. It was good, especially for someone as young as she looked (nine? Maybe ten, at the most).

“What are you painting?” he asked, the obvious question that every child delighted in answering.

“A tiger,” she replied. “It's from a story I made up. Would you like to hear it?”

Noah settled into one of the little plastic chairs, shifting until he didn't feel like he was going to break it or tip over. “I'd love to.”

“It starts,” she said, “with a mother tiger who lost her cub.”

She kept painting as she spoke, adding eyes and ears and extra stripes to the tiger, all in little black lines. The story wasn't long, but Noah found himself smiling by the end of it, at the imagination.

“Noah?”

He looked up, and found Kurt standing in the doorway with a woman who must have been Sister Anna.

“We've been looking for you,” Kurt continued, stepping inside the room to follow Sister Anna, who'd moved straight over to the girl and was now admiring the painting.

“Have you been having a nice talk, Ester?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” the girl – Ester – replied. He's very nice.”

“She was telling me a story,” Noah explained. He wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist when his husband was close enough and pulled him in to sit on the desk.

“I have lots of stories.” Ester gestured at a couple of finished paintings on curling paper which sat on another desk beside the easel. “I use them for all my paintings.”

Kurt smiled, and Noah felt warm at the brightness in his eyes. “Really?” Kurt said, leaning forward a little. “You know, I write stories, too. I've never written one about a lion, though.”

Ester turned completely away from the easel for the first time, offering her own little smile to Kurt. “I could tell you mine.”

 _This could work_ , Noah thought, loving the way Kurt's whole face was lit up as he listened. He resisted the urge to kiss Kurt on the temple in front of Ester and Sister Anna, but inside he beamed with excitement. This could really work.


	19. Day 19- Vampire AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember that oneshot I wrote a couple years ago, [Prey](http://greenglowsgold.livejournal.com/21078.html)? Here's a little snippet of the after.

The first sense that returns to Puck is smell.

It’s no particular scent; it’s blood and dirt and wood. And then it’s sound, the scrape of his hands against fabric (and he feels that, too, next, a little delayed like a video out of sync with the music), the heartbeat of the occasional passing insect. He sees the bright splashes of dark in new eyes, tastes stale air on his tongue. He feels the false pressure of close walls around him, and then he feels—

Something new. This isn’t sight, or smell, or touch or taste or hearing. It’s a _need_ to be somewhere else, with the person who’s calling him, drawing him in. He knows who it is, and he wants to go.

Breaking through the wood of the coffin is easy, as easy as realizing that he’s in a coffin and deciding not to care, and then he’s buried in dirt, fighting his way up. He’s halfway up before he remembers to breathe, and then he realizes he doesn’t have to. When he breaks through the soil, it’s night, but it feels like he’s hitting the sun.

 _He’s_ there. The reason Puck dragged himself out of the earth. There, just like he promised.

( _I’ll be here when you wake up._ )

Puck stops less than halfway out of the ground, distracted because he’s staring up at the man (man?) who brought him here. Kurt leans down and strokes a hand over Puck’s head, even though it’s covered in dirt, then he takes hold of Puck’s shoulder and pulls straight up, lifting him out of the ground in one smooth motion.

There’s a gap, between the last time he saw this man and now, where he doesn’t know what happened. It doesn’t seem important. Not so much as the way Kurt is smiling.

“I waited for you,” Kurt says.

Puck’s throat is dry from disuse as he speaks. “How long?”

“Four days.”

Puck chuckles, stronger already than the last sound that escaped. “Too long.” He looks down at his hands, frowning because they look the same as always, except dirtier. “I feel…”

“It’ll pass, the confusion,” Kurt says, reassuring and soft. “You’re hungry.”

 _Different_ , Puck thinks. _Different_. But not wrong.

Kurt leans in, hands pressed lightly to either side of his face, and kisses him with pale lips, just once.

“Come on,” he says, pulling away and letting one hand slip down to grasp Noah’s. “Let’s find something to eat. I’m going to show you everything new.”

At the urging, Noah steps off the fresh dirt of his own grave, follows a man he barely knows (he _knows_ ), trusts him to open up the world.


	20. Day 20- Magic Spell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling angsty and upset so

Kurt’s hands shake as he measures out the oak ash. He forces himself to stop, take a deep breath, calm himself and his hand before he returns to pouring, because this has to be perfect. This has to be _perfect_.

He’s screwed this up so many times before, but now he’s sure he has it right: the ingredients, the measurements, the incantation, everything. It’s going to work this time. It has to, or he’s not sure what he’ll do.

There’s damp earth in a clay bowl, and lit candles at precise points, and blood from three sources: a deer he’d found in the forest, a cut that still stung on his arm, and a little bottle, the source for which had run dry long ago. This is the last of it, that most important ingredient. His last chance.

Kurt tilts his face up toward the sky, and very carefully does not pray. Anything that sounds like an appeal to any god but that from which he asks help today will not be well received. Deep breath. Light the last candle.

The language spills over his tongue like water in a stream, practiced so often and known so well that the words have been engraved onto his heart. They carry more of him out as they go, mixing into the spell.

It builds around him, fills the space in a way that shouldn’t be possible when he’s out, alone, in the middle of a field; but he’s not alone, he can feel that much. When he’s sure of it, when the presence is so strong he can hardly bear it, Kurt abandons the practiced words of the spell, throws caution into the wind that whips around him like knives, and begs.

Desperate, unpolished pleading. And the presence, despite all odds, seems to listen, for at least a moment.

Then, it’s gone. Kurt stands, alone once more, in the middle of the still field. And because he’s alone, because he’s frustrated and tired and no one will listen to him, because that was his _last chance_ , he falls to his knees and _screams_. Long, rasping cries into the fists of his hands, knuckles pressing grooves in his cheeks and forehead. It’s the last part of himself that he has to let go, that he hasn’t poured into the spell.

When he looks up, he isn’t alone anymore. There’s a body laid out in front of him, still and silent, but familiar in every curve and contour of the tanned skin.

Kurt doesn’t breathe.

But the body _does_.


	21. Day 21- Superhero AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up writing this as part 3 of a superhero!verse I started during last year's drabble challenge ([part 1](http://greenglowsgold.tumblr.com/post/53139383400/day-13-colors-black) and [part 2](http://greenglowsgold.tumblr.com/post/53332346856/day-14-colors-white)). This verse is one of my most favoritist, so I hope you can forgive that I took some extra time to work on it before posting.

If there was one thing Tyler was known for (and, if he was honest, one thing that got him in trouble at work), it was his complete inability to give up. Even in totally hopeless situations, when any sane person would have ducked out long ago, Tyler just dug his heels in and kept on, and that was how he sold himself to get his job at The Evening Star.

Sometimes it yielded results. Sometimes it led to nights like tonight, wandering around the backstreets of New York City at two in the morning for the fifth time this week, wondering if he was more likely to find what he was looking for or just get stabbed and thrown into a dumpster.

He was just contemplating the likelihood of whether the hypothetical mugger would even bother with a dumpster, when he heard a soft noise to his left. Spinning around so fast that he nearly tipped over sideways, he immediately switched his mindset fully to option B: stabbing. _Oh God_ , he thought, _they’ll have Melanie go through my desk to clear it out and there’s fantasy mags in there that are_ definitely _going to look like porn._ So focused was he on the potential disaster (he _liked_ Melanie, damnit, though he supposed it wouldn’t matter anyway if he was dead), that it took him several extra seconds of petrified stillness to realize the man he saw wasn’t holding a gun.

“You’ve been looking for us,” the man said. And, holy shit, he _had_.

 _Option A, option A_ , his mind blared out, switching directions in a clumsy skid. He stared at the man who leaned on the wall of the alley, strong arms folded over his chest, looking very nonchalant compared to Tyler, who was about ready to pass out from excitement, only he couldn’t.

He’d been waiting for this for months, gathering bits of information from halfway-reliable sources and sneaking visits with newly-incarcerated criminals. When he took to the streets, following crimes to catch a glimpse, he barely managed to shout a greeting before the vigilante ducked away, avoiding his attempts at conversation. Finally, Tyler started wandering around aimlessly, not directing himself toward crimes but simply haunting the darker areas of the city. By now, he hoped, the Man of Stone knew he wanted to talk, knew he wasn’t giving up, and might choose to meet on his own terms.

And he had. There he was, with boots and gloves and a hood low over his hidden face. He struck an imposing figure, even lounging against the brick; Tyler wasn’t sure whether it was all his body or the knowledge of what he could do with it. Intimidating or not, he was still _there_ , speaking directly to Tyler for the first, gratifying time (a short ‘get out of the way!’ as he blew past to reach a criminal didn’t count). Something about his words caught Tyler’s ear, though.

“Us?” he said carefully, trying to move his head to search for more people without appearing to look for more people.

“Yeah,” the Man of Stone said, looking to the side into the empty depths of the alley. He spoke pointedly when he repeated, louder, “ _Us_.”

Tyler was deciding whether or not it was worth pointing out that no one was there when, suddenly, part of a shadow peeled itself off the wall and formed into the shape of a man, stepping onto the concrete. Tyler squeaked and stumbled a step back before he caught himself. _Ohmigod_ , he thought. _Ohmigod, ohmigod, it’s true, there_ are _two._

The second man was no easier to mistake for normal than the first, with a cloak covering his head and the whole of his body, swishing down around where his feet much have been, like shadows dancing along the ground. Tyler got the feeling that, if he looked away, the man would vanish, invisible from out of the corner of the eye.

“Oh,” he said. “That ‘us.’” Though he was only 80% sure he knew what he meant by that.

“Mmhmm.” The Man of Stone pushed himself off the wall to stand behind the… shadow guy. Standing straight, he only looked more intimidating. _Wow_ , Tyler thought, _look at his arms, damn_. First of all, _wow_ , again, if he weren’t so nervous he might swoon a little; second of all, holy hell would it hurt if he pissed these two off and they decided to hit him. He couldn’t even see what kind of body the other guy (or girl?) might be hiding under the cloak.

The Man of Stone waved a hand in the hair a little, catching his attention. Oh, crap, he’d said something.

“Sorry, uh, what?”

“You’ve been following us,” he said, speaking slowly to make it clear he was already repeating himself. “And you’ve been putting yourself in the middle of dangerous solutions and making us work harder to not get you hurt, and we want to know why.”

“We’d also like you to stop,” the shadow said, contributing to the conversation for the first time and so suddenly that Tyler nearly jumped. The voice was quiet, but strong, and Tyler strained to hear better but he still couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, damnit.

“I-I just wanted to talk to you. Both,” he added with only a moment’s hesitation. He hadn’t figured on two of them, hadn’t even been sure the shadow one was real, and _definitely_ hadn’t ever banked on the chance he’d be able to talk to both at once. “My name’s Tyler Brennan, and I write for The—”

“We know who you are,” the Man of Stone interrupted.

The shadow spoke again from the depths of his cloak. “We’ve read your stories. Mostly speculation, really.”

The Man of Stone stirred a little, like he wanted to turn to the side but stopped himself. He hadn’t known that, Tyler realized. Tyler relaxed into that information, comforted that even with their faces hidden, he could still catch clues from their body language, their voices… He was _good_ at this, it wasn’t hopeless.

“That’s why I wanted to ask you some questions,” he said eagerly, sensing the opening. “All _anyone_ can do is speculate, but if you’d just give me a few minutes, I could get the facts straight, tell people what’s really going on…”

“We don’t—” the shadow began, but Tyler interrupted, feeling very briefly confident.

“Look, you two found _me_ here,” he said, fighting the urge to flinch back a moment later (he could swear he could _feel_ the shadow scowling at him). “You know I’m alone, you don’t I don’t have any cameras set up or… or anything. I just want to talk.”

The Man of Stone’s head tilted to the right. “You could still have an audio recorder.”

“He doesn’t,” the shadow said, and, oh God, had he _checked_? When had he done that?

“See?” Tyler said, voice a little higher than normal, trying to blow right past the uncomfortable knowledge that the shadow had somehow searched his person for a wire without him even noticing. “Totally on the level. I won’t report anything you don’t want me to, but people want to know about you. The Man of Stone, right? You’re getting an image whether I say something or not, so don’t you want it to be a good one?”

The guy winced. “Okay, first thing? It’s ‘Stone,’ okay? Just Stone. No ‘Man of’ crap, that’s just dumb as hell.”

Tyler nodded fervently. “Stone, okay. I can do that. And, uh…” He gestured to the shadow still standing very still beside the Man— beside Stone. Beside two or three very deliberate steps that looked like he was gliding along the ground, this person had been almost entirely motionless the whole time, and it was a little unnerving. Tyler would at least like a name.

Instead of the shadow responding, Stone spoke for him. “He’s Shade.”

Finally the shadow moved, swiveling on the spot to face its companion directly. Tyler couldn’t see any hint of whatever expression the shadow was making, but Stone obviously could (or knew the shadow well enough to predict it?), and he sighed. “What, you got a better idea?” Another moment, another expression that Tyler couldn’t see. “Right. So, we’re going with it.”

“Shade,” Tyler repeated, trying to sound encouraging. “Got it.” He paused awkwardly; he didn’t want to _ask_ , but…

Shade huffed out a very quiet breath. “And I’m a man. Just so we’re clear.”

“Right, of course,” Tyler said, thanking all the gods of journalism that it had been taken care of so easily. “You haven’t been seen around as much as Stone, just more recently. Have you been doing this long?”

“It’s been… a while,” Shade said, clearly the most specific answer he was willing to give. It was enough for Tyler; the recent reports were due to Shade’s ability to remain hidden, not his delayed entrance to the scene of vigilante work.

“And the two of you.” Tyler gestured between them, where they stood less than two feet from each other. “You work together? Or both through the same sources? How do you coordinate—”

“Look,” Shade interrupted, “we’re not…”

“We’re not too comfortable sharing our methods,” Stone said, picking up seamlessly where Shade trailed off. He raised a hand to Shade’s shoulder, drawing him forward from the shadow that Tyler hadn’t even realized he’d begun to sink back into. “Obviously. It wouldn’t be safe for us, and it’d make it easier for criminals to know what’s up. I’m sorry if that’s not, like, enough information for you or whatever.”

“But you _have_ to stop following us around everywhere,” Shade said. “It’s dangerous, for you and for us. And walking around alone at night isn’t exactly the safest method either.”

“Well, it’s not like I could find you at the grocery store or the police station,” Tyler protested.

“If we want to find you again. _If_ ,” Stone stressed. “I’m sure we can find you ourselves.”

Tyler might not always know when to give up on a cause, but he could tell when it would just make things worse to push a person. This interview, such as it was, was nearly over. If he could just get a little bit more… “Fair enough.” See, he could compromise, too. “Could you just tell me, why do you do it? I mean, why not leave it to the cops, or… Most of the reports say you can do things that shouldn’t be possible, but that’s never been _confirmed_ …”

Stone shook his head. “Well, don’t look to us for that. You’ve caught enough looks at me fighting to decide for yourself if you wanna believe it.”

“If it’s true, though,” Tyler started, but he was cut off.

“ _If_ it’s true.” Shade took just two steps forward, still a careful distance from Tyler but close enough now that he felt a shiver trail up his spine. “Then don’t you think there’d be more like us?”

“Maybe there are,” Tyler whispered.

Shade moved back once more, already half-entwined with the shadows. “I’m leaving. Stone?”

“Yeah.” Stone shot a look at Tyler, and he could almost, _almost_ catch the look he was being given, but maybe that was just imagination. And then he was gone, halfway up the building’s fire escape by the time Tyler was done being distracted by how Shade melted into the shadows. That couldn’t be natural, it just couldn’t. And Stone’s shields…

Folding himself in against the alley wall and sinking to the ground, Tyler whipped a notebook out of his jacket and propped it against his knees to begin frantically writing down every detail of the encounter. He’d seen them up close, not a fleeting glance, but enough to _describe_ them, if only their wardrobe and stance. He’d had a _conversation_ , even. They knew each other, he was sure. Certainly worked together often enough, maybe talked outside of ‘work hours,’ to be that comfortable at anticipating each other. There was something there, oh yes, definitely.

And he was going to be the one to name the shadow. ‘Shade,’ hell, that was catchy enough, and it matched so well with Stone (the guy was right, the shorter title was less clumsy) that the papers would snatch it up fast and run with it.

Names, quotes, and what was maybe a promise they’d talk again. Oh, yeah, Tyler was _good_ at his job.


	22. Day 22- Online Relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno I guess having exactly one drink with dinner is no good for my creative mind I mean what the heck. Go big or go home, in the future.

It was an odd feeling to be so close to someone whose face he’d never seen, Puck thought. He didn’t even often talk to him, either, though he had enough at least to know that the guy’s name was Kurt and he lived in the US and they were about the same age. That was it, really, as far as personal information went. Mostly, they talked about music.

Mostly, they _sent_ each other music, with relatively little discussion on the side. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement based on the exchange, and every day or two one would send the other a link or a file, to whatever song they were listening to lately and thought the other would enjoy. Puck found most of his new music this way, now, and brought in more than a few options to his school’s glee club to try arranging (some worked, some didn’t, some he didn’t feel right sharing).

The quieter ones, or the ones sent with the email timed after midnight, those were the ones he didn’t share, with his club or his family or anyone at all really. Anything sent after midnight seemed more personal, because anything _he_ sent after midnight tended to be entangled in whatever deep thoughts he was having, and he didn’t think it was fair to share Kurt’s thoughts.

They could talk about other things, he supposed, like what they did or where they lived, whether they were close enough to meet up over a weekend, but this was enough for now. There were patterns in the tracks they sent, enough to keep Puck content that they were still okay, right where they were. They didn’t need to change.

Except once, at three in the morning, when he slipped into his email a file of himself singing Billy Joel, and didn’t say a word about where the cover had come from.


	23. Day 23- Mythical Creature/Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I ever actually use the word 'selkie' in this drabble, so just fyi if you don't know the lore

Puck had grown up hearing stories about the ones who went out too far on land. He heard about those who got careless, went out on their own and didn't watch carefully for waiting thieves. He heard about the ones who disappeared, and then (only sometimes) showed up years later, relieved and overjoyed to have escaped, or (less often) sad to have to leave behind children for the sake of the sea. He had resolved, long ago, never to be one of those who let their skin be taken, who let themselves be trapped on land, who let themselves disappear. Not him; it wouldn't be him.

It had always seemed a little stupid. How hard, he thought, could it be to find something so important? Wouldn't all your energy be directed to searching every nook and cranny, to being such a little shit to whoever took it that they finally just gave in and gave it back, to prying it out of the human's hands?

He found out later there were rules and loopholes, specific to the human's possession. It's in a locked chest? Can't break it open; you need the key. Put away in a bank under the human's name? Can't have someone else get it for you; it has to be him. If a human has your skin, the human has you.

So Puck was careful.

He was young, too. Whenever his family made trips to the beach, it was easy and natural to stay close, to pile their skins together and guard them carefully, enough eyes on the bundle that it never went unwatched. It wasn't as though it was hard to stay vigilant, either; dancing out of their skins and feeling sand between toes he wasn't used to having was an interesting experience, but it was just that, it wasn't freedom. Freedom was the sea, diving through the waves and under the water while it rushed over his slick skin, turning his body in any and every direction and darting between groups of fish. That was life.

But once in a while, the beach was a novelty. Land, drier air, rocks that felt different to the sensitive pads of pink feet. When he was fifteen, it was escape. Just for a few hours.

Puck dragged himself up to the rocky shore, body heavy on the land in a way it couldn't ever be in the water. He peeled himself carefully out of his skin, feeling the harsh edges of the rocks more and more sharply as he did so, until he was entirely out. He rose to his feet, only a little shaky from the months it had been since he'd last done this, stretched out his limbs and reached down to pick up his skin from the ground. He folded it neatly and then looked for somewhere to hide it — it had to be good, with no one else here to watch — and finally settled on a small crevice between two rocks, which would be almost impossible to see except at just the right angle.

The sun was warm, with nothing but air between it and him. He was naked in a way that didn't often make sense. He sank to the beach, past the pointed rocks, letting sand work its way onto him (his neck, his fingers, his back) so much he knew he'd had to rinse off in the waves before slipping back into his skin. He lay there, feeling empty and open and alone in the best of ways, for anywhere between several minutes and an hour, until he was interrupted by a quiet cough.

He scuttled halfway to his knees to find the source of the noise, only to see a smallish boy who couldn't be any older than Puck himself, standing awkwardly on the rocks (his feet were all wrong, balanced on the incline). “Uh, hello,” the boy said. He was very pink in the face, more so than Puck thought humans normally were. “Are you alright?”

The boy was also, Puck noticed (ignoring the words completely) standing not too far from where Puck had hidden his skin. Not _close_ , either, and not at all at an angle where he would be able to find it, Puck was relieved to notice, but still, it was enough that he felt a surge of worry for its safety and made an aborted lunge a few feet toward the rocks. The boy squeaked and fell several steps backward himself, even further now from the hiding place, which calmed Puck considerably. The boy didn't seem calm at all, though; he was now entirely too red in the face and had taken to staring directly up at the sun, which Puck thought was meant to be bad for humans.

“Oh, gosh; do you need...? Here, take this.” The boy thrust out a towel he'd been carrying in Puck's direction, still staring resolutely at the sky. Well, whatever was needed for the boy to feel comfortable and not call anyone else over, Puck supposed, and moved in closer (the boy squinted until his eyes were nearly shut and shifted a little on his feet) to take the towel. This had the added bonus of putting himself closer to the crevice which held his skin, and he felt much safer as he wrapped the towel around his waist. Now, at least, the boy seemed to be able to look directly at him once more.

“Did you lose your swimsuit in the water?” the boy asked.

“Yes,” Puck answered, though he would have answered the same to any explanation the boy had thought up; it was easier than figuring out precisely what was wrong with the situation and why a normal person would have been through that on his own. “My family's back that way,” he added, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder in a direction that could have indicated just about anywhere except where the boy had come from.

“Ah.” The boy glanced out at the water for a minute, which was unnerving, as though he knew that was where Puck's family really was. “Do you mind if I sit here for a while? I know you were here first, and alone, but... I just need some time off.”

Puck shrugged. “Me too. But strangers don't count, right?”

“Right,” the boy sighed, smiling gratefully. “I'm Kurt.” He held out a hand, which Puck stared at for a few moments too long before he realized what to do with it.

“Puck,” he said, as confidently as he could to cover the hesitation before shaking hands. “Do you come out here a lot?”

Kurt made a very non-committal noise, raising a hand as if to make a gesture before giving up halfway. “Not really. It was my dad's idea. His idea to move out here in the first place, too, which... I dunno, I guess it's better, I just don't really know what to do with myself now.”

“You moved?”

“Just because of some trouble at school— like there won't be trouble anywhere. I think he sees the West Coast as some kind of liberal wonderland, but that doesn't mean that everyone here is automatically fine with every single lifestyle— Ah, I'm sorry,” he interrupted himself, growing pink in the face once again. “I tend to... over-share, with people I've just met.”

Puck sat down on the nearest, flattest rock, which was much more comfortable with the cushion of the towel, he noticed. “I came out here to sit on the beach naked and ignore my family. I got a mom, a sister, and a dad I haven't seen in six years. Think I give a shit if you share too much?”

Kurt grinned. “Guess not.” He swung down to sit on a rock next to Puck.

“Anyway. Lifestyle?”

Kurt only turned his eyes down and his face away, and Puck was beginning to be seriously concerned he had some kind of condition with his coloring. Other than that, though, he was pretty attractive.

“K, whatever.” He seriously doubted that whatever Kurt didn't want to say, it was weirder than what his own story would sound like to a human who didn't know the legends. But, yeah. Whatever. “So, you like...” he searched for something, _anything_ to ask about, but damnit, he just didn't have the knowledge. “Sand?”

From the look on Kurt's face, that had been just as terrible a question as he'd feared. Next second, though, Kurt was laughing, long and hard, and Puck felt suddenly as though he'd accomplished something truly fantastic.

“I do,” Kurt said finally. “And what about you, do you like rocks?”

Frowning, Puck considered the question. “Eh, they're kinda scraping at my legs, so I'm gonna go with a 'no' right now.”

“I could recommend a cream for that,” Kurt said, before seeming to catch himself a moment later. “I mean, if you care...”

“Sure, why not,” Puck said, willing to talk about anything, and they were off.

Puck didn't understand half the questions Kurt asked, and he could tell Kurt didn't understand more than half of his answers. He tried to stay clear of starting too many topics himself, just to avoid bringing up anything that sounded too weird, but he could tell he strayed on the odd side of the line several times anyway, regardless of how hard he tried. Still, despite a few confused looks, Kurt didn't seem to care much, and Puck liked this, this weird, rambling conversation that was nothing he could have had at home. It was different, and that's what he'd come for.

It was growing dark by the time he realized how long they'd talked. He didn't notice the late hour or the dim sky so much as the growing pull of the ocean; he'd been away from the water so long, it was time to go back. Kurt seemed to realize the time in the same moment, or maybe he noticed a change on Puck's face, because he stood from the rocks and said something about his father missing him, and stumbled a few, stiff steps down until he was right in front of the crevice that held Puck's skin.

Puck froze. It felt like everything did: his voice in his throat and the blood in his veins, and even the tide. He couldn't feel any of it past the rushing thoughts in his head.

“What's wrong?” Kurt asked, noticing Puck's distress immediately (damn him) and doing the worst thing possible by sinking down to sit so he was closer to Puck's level. It put him directly in front of the hole, blocking it with his body. Puck could try to lunge past him to get to his skin, but Kurt could certainly grab it quicker, and then...

Oh, God. It _was_ going to be him in the stories after all.

“Puck, what's wrong, what is it?” Kurt asked. He was sounding more frantic by the second, reaching out like he meant to touch Puck's knee before pulling back when Puck went even more stiff at the anticipation of contact. “Do I need to call someone? What—?” With no reaction from Puck (he couldn't think, couldn't think of _anything_ to do), Kurt's eyes were drawn along Puck's own sight-line, fixed on the crevice behind Kurt. And, shit, _shit_ , Kurt turned around, reached in, and drew out the skin.

He unfolded it onto the rock, where it barely shone in the dim light, dry from hours out of the water. Kurt gasped.

“Oh my God, I thought— I _did_ see it. I thought I'd seen you slip out of something, but... This is a seal's skin,” Kurt finished weakly.

Puck couldn't draw enough breath to answer. His whole life was there, splayed on the rocks and held so loosely in Kurt's hands that he could have easily reached out and snatched it back, if only for the fact that it was in Kurt's possession now, and so he simply  _couldn't_ . Wasn't capable. He couldn't even explain why.

“This is yours,” Kurt said, or maybe asked, Puck couldn't tell.

He couldn't answer, either. He wanted to say, yes, it is,  _give it back_ . He wanted to say, no, it's yours now,  _fuck you_ .

He was so stuck in that moment that he almost missed something incredibly spectacular happening. But then again, who could miss a human holding your skin out for you to take?

Puck took it carefully, slowly, half-expecting Kurt to snatch it back at any moment with a mocking grin and a laugh ( _stuck_ now, Kurt would say), but nothing stopped his hand, and soon enough he held his skin tightly, clutching it to his own chest and feeling every twisted nerve release in one great swell.

“Thanks,” he choked out, his first word since Kurt had moved.

“Well, sure,” Kurt said slowly, looking entirely confused as to what he was being thanked for. “You'll leave my towel here too, right?”

Puck laughed helplessly, and a little wildly (Kurt looked concerned again). A towel for a life;  _imagine_ . He didn't know, or he didn't care. “Of course.” He stood up, letting the towel slip down as he went, since he wouldn't need it any longer, anyway. Now that he held his skin again, the pull to return to the sea was so strong it was like a hook between his ribs, tugging him toward the water.

A few feet away, Kurt was glancing between him and the ocean with raised eyebrows, obviously still putting the pieces together and not in much of a rush. “Okay. Uh. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Will I... see you around, maybe?”

Puck opened his mouth to say 'no' immediately; of course not, this had been a close enough call already. But he found himself hesitating. As strong as the compulsion was to go back to the water, there was a little, tiny flutter waving him the other way, and he stared at the boy in front of him, trying to work it out. It was... weird, but it wasn't enough to stop him from taking a step back, and another, until he could feel the waves over his feet. “No,” he said anyway, but less because he wanted to.

There was another rule, one he'd thought less stupid than the ones about possession. Seven years. Seven years before he could meet the same human on land again. It usually felt like a protection; if you escaped, you were safe for years afterward. But, yeah, seven years.

“Oh,” Kurt said quietly. “Alright.”

Puck paused, and then surprised himself by taking three slow, tottering steps  _away_ from the ocean. He wasn't sure why, exactly, he just followed the flutter that beat gently against his back, and found himself standing directly before Kurt. He leaned over and kissed him once on the forehead. “Thanks,” he said again, then stepped back into the water.

Kurt's mouth hung open, and didn't close as Puck slipped back into his skin, filling out every inch with a sigh of relief, and sinking into the water. Puck watched him stand there out of the corner of his eye as he swam off.

He still felt the flutter, though it might have been the waves.

Seven years. Huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 coming as soon as an appropriate trope comes up on the list again


	24. Day 24- Mistletoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is also a HTTYD crossover. Why? Because _no one can stop me_.
> 
> (If you haven't seen 'Gift of the Night Fury', I'm so sorry, both because it's adorable and also because you may miss some references here. If you haven't seen HTTYD at all, WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN IT GO NOW GO SEE IT and then come back to read.)

“A little to the left, Raze, just a little— Yes, there! Perfect, put it right there, okay?” Kurt sighed contentedly as he examined the placement. There was a reason he'd volunteered to put up the mistletoe, and it was so he'd know from the start _exactly_ where it was placed, so he'd have the best shot of avoiding it. Several of the village girls still thought it was funny to try and corner him beneath it, so he needed to have a strategy.

“Good girl,” he added, as Raze leaned back down, mistletoe in place, to nuzzle against his side. Kurt stroked down the side of his dragon's head, taking care not to rub the scales the wrong way. Nadders were picky about things like that.

“You've been tellin' her that every five minutes lately,” Puck said, swinging around from behind a nearby pillar. “You afraid she's gonna take off this year and have babies?”

Kurt didn't look at him, just scratched Raze under the jaw until she purred in delight. “Na, I think she's still too young.” He was glad they'd finally found an area of Berk appropriate for the... explosive birthing rituals of the dragons, after two years in a row of them all taking off at once. They seemed to all leave, even if they weren't ready to lay eggs, in a show of solidarity or mass protection. Now, at least, they wouldn't all need to fly off the island. They were close enough to feel safe. “Yours?”

“Still playin' the field.” Puck grinned, reached down to pat at Axe's head when it appeared beside him. “I don't think they could agree on what they want, anyway, even if they were old enough.” Grind shot out from the other side of the pillar and rammed his head into Puck's side, protesting the statement. “Well, you _can't_ ,” Puck said, and Grind grumbled a little.

“You're going to get them tangled up if you stand like that,” Kurt advised. He gave Raze the next bit of mistletoe and started looking for another place to hang it up.

“No I'm— Shit!” Puck jumped forward, having just noticed that Grind was letting out a soft stream of green gas, apparently more annoyed than he'd initially seemed. Puck got out of the way just in time to avoid Axe's spark and the small explosion that followed, scorching the pillar.

Axe and Grind seemed nearly as surprised as Puck at the way the explosion went off, and startled in opposite directions, fulfilling Kurt's prophecy by tangling themselves around the pillar. So predictable.

“Damnit, Axe. You don't have to follow along with him just 'cause _he's_ pissed.”

The dragon unwound itself from the column, which took several seconds, and stumbled to the right until it's whole body was visible, both heads snapping at each other irritatedly.

“Yeah, no danger of your dragon taking off this year.” Kurt smirked.

“Oh, ha, ha. Like you're so mature. Don't think I don't know what you're doing with the mistletoe. _That_ one's practically hidden behind the shields, no one's gonna be able to find it.” Puck pointed at the sprig that Raze had just placed, entirely without Kurt's direction.

“Good girl,” he cooed again. She was getting good at this. “And it isn't my fault. Girls are tricky.”

“That they are,” Puck agreed. He walked a little closer, his dragon following behind him slowly, heads still bickering amongst themselves.

Kurt pushed him back a bit. “ _Don't_ get so close; didn't you _just_ say you saw the mistletoe hanging up there?”

Laughing lightly, Puck shoved him in return. “Think it takes a few minutes for the magical compulsion to set in, Kurt. Besides, there's no one here to—”

Just then, Axe and Grind, not realizing their human had stopped moving, bumped into them from behind, and immediately wound their long necks around Kurt and Puck to snap at each other from the other side, undeterred by the obstacle. The boys were pulled inwards together, faces smashing against each other, shouting and pushing against each other with their hands and generally only contributing to the disaster.

“Don't—”

“Get _off_!”

“Fuck, Axe, get... Back off!” Puck finally shoved one of the two heads (Kurt couldn't tell which right now, they were to tangled) away from them, creating a hole in the twisting scales for them to stumble through. “Kurt, I'm sorry, I...”

“Shut up,” Kurt mumbled, glaring at Raze instead of anywhere near Puck, because his damn dragon was just standing innocently to the side, holding a sprig of mistletoe in her beak as if waiting for instruction. “A lot of help _you_ were.” Raze just cocked her head, like she couldn't tell why he was annoyed. She cooed lightly, and dropped the mistletoe to the floor.

“Kurt—”

“Here.” Kurt thrust the little pile of sprigs into Puck's hands. “You finish up. Your dragon's got two heads anyway, you'll get done twice as fast. Come on,” he added to Raze. “We're going.”

Raze followed him dutifully out of the hall, even being nice enough to scoff and turn up her head at Axe and Grind as they went. _Zipplebacks_ , Kurt thought grumpily, _more trouble than they're worth_.

And they matched well with their damn humans, too.


	25. Day 25- High School AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some may say that a High School AU doesn't work properly for Glee. I say, since when has McKinley ever been anything like an actual high school?

Kurt and Puck met up in detention after school, which was unusual for at least one of them. Puck looked no less concerned than Kurt, however, and immediately sunk down into a seat beside him to hiss into his ear: “I got sent here for _singing_.”

“Me too,” Kurt said quietly, leaning in. “They said I was a 'disruption to the class' or something. I'd barely even started the first verse!”

“I was in the hall and they still got pissed. Told me I could have my guitar back after detention, what the he—”

“Quiet please,” came a stern voice from the front of the classroom, and both Kurt and Puck turned forward in surprise to find the teacher staring down at them over her glasses.

Kurt gaped. “But how did she hear us. We were _whispering._ ”

She shushed them once more, and they fell silent, resigned to waiting out the rest of the detention with their books for company.

As soon as they were let out, however, Puck grabbed Kurt's arm and tugged him off to the side. They tried to enter a janitors' closet, but found it rather small and packed with actual cleaning supplies, so they found an empty classroom instead (the third one they tried, because the first two were both locked). Kurt followed him along without resisting, because clearly there was something _very_ weird going on and he had already been worried that Mercedes hadn't responded to any of his texts.

“So, singing,” Puck started. “I mean, what the hell? Where's Mr. Schue?”

“I don't know; you're the one who takes Spanish with him. Was he in class today?”

“I skipped.” Puck frowned. “I went to gym, though. There was... it must have been a sub. Beiste wasn't around anywhere.”

“We played basketball,” Kurt agreed, vaguely horrified. “I've never played basketball in my life.”

Puck glanced at the passing shadows by the door and pulled Kurt further back into the room, away from the sight-line from the hallway. “Have you seen _any_ of your normal teachers around today.”

“Well I...” Kurt paused. Had he? He didn't usually pay much attention to... “I don't know; I _think_ so? Maybe not?”

“This is weird,” Puck moaned. “This is super, super weird. There are people posting announcements on the cork-boards who I've never even heard of. Don't we know, like, everyone important at this school?”

They were still desperately trying to parse through it when the door opened and a teacher (they didn't recognize this one either) walked in. “Excuse me, what are you two doing in here?”

She led them out of the building, talking about 'past school hours' and 'only appropriate after-school activities' and 'club sponsors,' none of which made much sense. She gave them a friendly shove out the door, apparently under the impression that they'd stayed late to study. “The library will open at 7am tomorrow, boys,” she said cheerily, and closed the door behind him.

Kurt and Puck looked up at the doorway, and realized all at once what was wrong when they saw the sign.

_Lima City High School_

Where the  _hell_ were they?


	26. Day 26- Elevator Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to get caught up on these, damnit.
> 
> You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me not to write a 'Devil' AU for this prompt. But I think I've filled my quota for turning innocent tropes into horror movie crossovers this month.

Puck had absolutely  _had_ it.

And really, he thought — personally, though he'd never say it out loud — that he'd put up with a lot already. He loved his roommate, he really did, but Mercedes could get a  _little_ bit crazy when it came to her classes. Again, not something he'd say to her face.Ever.

Apparently, even after all the stressing she'd done to get into the school in the first place, the competition wasn't over. She was always complaining about this one girl, Rachel, whom the teachers favored even though Mercedes had “more talent in my left hand than she does in her little stick body.” Puck generally just assured her that of course she was right, and let her carry on. He knew Mercedes was doing great there anyway, she just needed to vent sometimes.

But now there was some big event coming up, something first years almost never got and had to audition for, and this Rachel was determined to get a spot so, naturally, so was Mercedes. Or maybe it had gone the other way around, Puck couldn't remember. Either way, their apartment was now practically wallpapered in sheet music.

Mercedes went through several songs an hour, some of which she would run through over and over to fix little mistakes, some of which she wouldn't even finish looking at before tossing aside. She needed the perfect audition song, she insisted; something that showed off her range and how well she held her notes, but also had enough emotion to attract the attention she needed to earn a spot.

Puck could deal with the constant practicing (he did own headphones), he could deal with the mess (who cared), he could even deal with her badgering him about which songs sounded best and yelling when he stepped on music she'd left  _on the floor_ (a little harder, but hey, he was supportive). His breaking point, however, was that she'd been at it so long her judgment had started to suffer. Some of her 'finalists' for song choices — of which there were about a hundred — were just  _bad_ . He was not going to let her go off with a terrible audition, and then have to comfort her after Rachel won, just because he'd been too chicken to tell her the truth in the first place.

In the end, though, he couldn't actually face her, so he compromised. He filled his arms with the worst offenders, plus some that had been discarded to the floor that he was afraid she might pick up again, and quietly sneaked out of the apartment. There were garbage cans in the apartment of course, but for a case this serious, Puck needed an incinerator. There had to be no chance of recovery. He didn't relax until he was in the elevator, on the way down from the eighth floor, where he leaned against the wall and sighed: he'd gotten away with it, and Mercedes would thank him from the end.

Suddenly, the elevator slowed to a stop on floor seven, and Puck panicked. What the hell, had she  _seen him leaving_ ? Had she sprinted down the stairs fast enough to stop the elevator a floor below and demand her music back; could anyone actually move that fast? God, he'd picked a fight with some sort of angry superhero. He should have known; Mercedes had always had the air of someone who might be hiding a superpower. When the doors opened, however, it was not an angry woman holding out a hand for the stack of papers, but a guy with a pile of his own, standing stunned like he hadn't actually expected the elevator to stop, or hadn't expected anyone to be in it.

It took the guy only a moment to get over his surprise, and then he rushed inside the small space, jamming the button for the bottom floor and muttering, “come on, come on, let's go.” He huddled nervously against the wall once the elevator was moving again, giving Puck a chance to get a closer look at him.

The man didn't look familiar, but Puck didn't know everyone who lived in the building of course, even if this one did seem around his age and was presumably only a floor beneath him. He was also almost unbearably hot. Puck felt for sure he would have noticed him by now; maybe he was visiting, or newly moved in. The pile of paper in the man's hand turned out to be stacks of sheet music not unlike Puck's own, and that was the only thing that distracted him from staring at the man's eyes. What the hell.

The man glanced at him briefly, looked down at the music he held, and shifted closer to his own wall. They didn't speak the whole way down, or as they both found their way to the incinerator. They tossed the papers into the fire one after another, standing back to watch it all burn.

Finally, the man turned to Puck. “You saw nothing,” he said lowly, and whisked off back to the elevator, leaving Puck to ensure everything burned to ashes before he would brave the trip back upstairs.

Puck did not agree with the man. Okay, sure, he could forget about the creepily similar stack of music, but he was  _not_ forgetting those eyes any time soon. He was going to have to start making more visits to the seventh floor...


	27. Day 27- Body Swap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's rated PG-13 for some sex talk. Not actual sex, nothing super-explicit, but there's definitely some talk. In other news, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Kurt looked up and down his body with great judgment. Same torso, same muscle on the arms, little scar over the left shoulder that was mostly straight but curved a little at the end, hair a little more tousled than usual because he'd just been sleeping, face tired but pretty damn familiar. It was just about exactly the same as he remembered it. The only difference was that it was several feet further in front of him than usual.

“Well,” Kurt's mouth said. “I guess we should've expected this.”

Kurt agreed, but he didn't really want to say so.

“Those freaking witches,” Noah continued, while Kurt watched his own mouth shape the words with fascination (was that really what he looked like when he made 'f' sounds?). “Should've known they wouldn't just let us walk out after we wrecked up their alter. 'Course they put a curse on us; it was just time-delay.”

Kurt caught Noah's eye (his own eye?), to try to calm him down a little (it was so weird looking  _up_ to do that). “They're long-gone by now. We're better off figuring it out on our own than tracking them down, I bet, so it's no use getting upset with them.”

“It's _every_ use,” Noah argued, but did finally sigh and run a hand down the body he currently inhabited, like he was looking for a button or switch that would turn them back.

“It happened in our sleep, so maybe we'll change back tonight?” Kurt suggested.

Noah shook his head. “Na, they were too pissed for that. It's probably something stupid, like community service.”

“Passing out food to the homeless to get our own bodies back?” Kurt said doubtfully. “Yeah, definitely stupid.”

“At least we hit these witches after we got our shit together, not before.”

“Huh? What shit?”

“ _Our_ shit.”

Kurt gave him a blank stare, one which he knew precisely what it looked like, and how much it would seem like he needed more information, because he'd seen Noah give him that exact look many times.

“Sex, Kurt. We're gonna have to deal with each other's dicks eventually, to piss and whatever? Which is easier when we've already seen them. For sex.”

“Oh, right,” Kurt said. “Well. Yes.”

“Hey, maybe we should try _that_.” Noah seemed suddenly excited, eyes lighting up and his fist pumping just a little into the air in a gesture that looked entirely weird on Kurt's face.

Kurt nearly took a step back at the enthusiasm. “What.”

“ _Sex_ ,” Noah said, like it was the best and most logical idea in the world.

“What,” Kurt repeated.

“Well, yeah. I mean, sex is all...” Noah made wavy gestures through the air, trying to indicate what sex was using only his hands. “Entwining, and stuff. Maybe we'll get mixed up enough we'll just... snap back into the right places.”

It didn't make sense. Not that anything relating to witches made sense, but still. Kurt was pretty damn skeptical. “Won't that be weird? It's like having sex with yourself.”

“Like masturbating?” Noah said drily. “Yeah, how weird, no one's _ever_ done that.”

“Well it's just... It's different,” Kurt finished lamely.

“Duh, of course it is. But hell, this is easy to try before we move on to other stuff.”

“Oh my God,” Kurt said.

“What?”

“Oh my God, you just really want to do it. You want to have sex with me in your body.”

Noah turned pink. “I mean, aren't you just a  _little_ bit curious...?”

Kurt stared at him for a full minute. Then, “You know what, what the hell.  _Don't_ mess with my feet.”

“Yeah, I know that, duh. Don't mess up my hair,” Noah said, grinning.

Yeah, this was gonna be super weird.


	28. Day 28- Genderbend AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got nearly all the way to the end before I realized their cisgirl! names rhymed. But fuck it.

The locker rooms were not at _all_ acceptably hygienic at this school, Cora thought, and if the women's room was like this, she didn't even want to see the men's.

“Hey, Cor.”

And then there was the company.

“You still pretendin' to be a cheerleader this year?” Nora said, swaying her hips a little more than necessary as she walked forward through the mostly-empty room. “I thought you were done after we won Nationals.”

“Well, what can I say. It'll look good on my college application. Are you still pretending you're gonna be head cheerleader?”

Nora scowled. “She hasn't made a decision yet.”

“You got a boob job,” Cora pointed out. She slammed her locker shut, relieved to be back in her own clothes instead of that damn uniform that Nora was still flaunting around her thighs. “I think you know you doomed yourself.”

“Shut up. You know _you're_ enjoying it.” Nora sauntered closer, close enough that Cora finally had to press a hand against her collarbone to shove her back a little.

“Not _here_ ,” she hissed, quietly even though there was no one around to listen. “Do you know what's _been_ on these benches.”

Nora glanced at them. “Probably other people's asses.” She looked back up. “C'mon, Cor. Are they that different from ours?”

Oh, God. Cora could not believe she'd had sex with a girl who could say something like that. The horror must have shown on her face, because Nora sighed and grabbed at her arm instead, tugging back toward— _was that a closet?_

“What is wrong with you?” she said, about fifty percent sure she was talking to herself.

Nora grinned, twirling her ponytail around her finger. “Just thought I'd spend some time with our own glorified boombox.”

Speechless, Cora stood for a second too long with her mouth open, giving Nora the chance to continue.

“I mean, I know you can't do the dances, but you've gotta have _some_ kind of moves that—”

Nora didn't finish, because Cora had tackled her 'round the middle and pulled her into the closet. Nora's lips were a lot nicer when they were kissing instead of speaking.


	29. Day 29- Clothes Sharing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A (very) late (sorry) sequel "drabble" (4k what the hell) to Day 23 Mythical Creature/Human AKA the one where Puck is a selkie and Kurt doesn't want his skin.

Seven years was a long time, Puck realized slowly, month after month after month. Not that he hadn't known that already, but when faced with it directly as a deadline... yeah, it was a long time. The tug, the weird impulse to go _back_ , that never really went away; just washed along with him over the years, and it was stupid that one kid he'd met on a beach when he was fifteen should have had this much of an impact on him, but there it was.

His family migrated west, for a while, across the ocean. There were reefs and fantastic fish he'd never met before, and warmer temperatures which were nice whenever he popped his head out of the water to lie on the rocks for a while. He usually kept his skin on when he did so, these days (he'd gotten lucky once, but the chances that more than one human would stop themselves from taking advantage of an opportunity like that were slim to none, in his species' experience). Still, he found himself hanging around beaches more than necessary, even if the faces he saw were always disappointing.

His mother told him it was about time to settle down with a nice selkie wife, eventually, and he could see the logic in that, if not the appeal. It wasn't that he didn't like having fun, occasionally, when there was a like-minded female around who wouldn't need any sort of commitment in the morning, but he had no desire to settle down.

The ocean was vast, and stretched around the edges of every bit of land on earth, and it was empty and full at the same time. Puck supposed that existential crisis was a natural part of everyone's early twenties.

When he was twenty-two, he broke off the migration patterns of his family, and returned to the west coast of America. He wasn't stupid, he knew what he was looking for; he just wasn't sure what he'd do if he found it. Maybe the universe took this as a sign not to give it to him, because he didn't see a familiar face for months of hanging around beaches and pulling himself up onto rocks. He went up and down the coast, wishing the pull in his center would actually _direct_ him rather than just tug him forwards, further onto land than he was willing to venture even for this.

“ _I come out here a lot,” Kurt admitted._

_Puck turned to him in surprise; he didn't look nearly comfortable enough with sitting on these rocks to have been here 'a lot.' “You do?” he asked, trying not to sound too skeptical._

_Kurt shifted where he sat, laughing a little nervously. “Well, not a_ lot _, I guess. We haven't been in California that long. But a lot for how long we've lived here, and I... I think I_ will _come here a lot.” He paused. “Do you come here?”_

“ _Sometimes,” Puck said, and then remembered he didn't want to give the wrong impression. “But not too often, I guess. I just mean, the water. My family... moves around a lot.”_

“ _Oh,” Kurt said. “We don't. I hope.”_

“ _A lot,_ ” Kurt had said. But it'd been seven years. Well, no. Eight, nearly, after all the time he'd spent fruitlessly moping around the Californian coastline. Puck decided firmly that he would give it until that eight-year mark, and then take off for a different environment. He could learn to ignore the pull in his gut that was probably going to follow him around until he died, right?

God, it was almost worse than when he was out of the water.

The next couple of months were brutal, since he knew he was working on a (self-imposed, but still) deadline. He nearly leaped out of the water every time he saw so much as a male-shaped figure walking along the beach, whether it was in a secluded area or not, and he felt a little sick to his stomach every time he thought about where his family must have been by now (probably somewhere around the bottom of South America, given their last conversation and the time of year). It was this desperate frustration that he chose to blame for his actions when he took one last visit to the rocky beach where he'd first met Kurt.

It was clearly a man, he'd tell himself later. It was  _clearly_ a man standing on the little bit of beach between the piles of rocks who he'd seen, and seen in great detail before hauling himself up onto land in less time than should be possible for his body. Time changed faces, but not enough that he couldn't recognize the ones that mattered, the one staring in utter shock as he clambered out of his skin barely a foot onto shore. He didn't even bother to fold it or put it to the side, just left it where it fell and stumbled forward. It  _must_ be...

“Puck,” Kurt (thank God) said weakly. “I...” He swallowed hard. “I thought it must have been a dream.”

“In the middle of the day?” Puck said, incredulous. And those were the first words he'd said to Kurt in eight years. Well, alright then. He was still getting over how lucky it was that it was _actually_ Kurt he'd seen on the beach and he hadn't just exposed himself to some random stranger, anyway.

Kurt laughed in a strangled sort of way that cut itself off halfway through. “A hallucination, then, I,  _shit_ , I wasn't sure it could be  _real_ .” His eyes were roaming up and down Puck's body, unashamed, so different from the last time they'd spoken.

“ _It's nice here, and I like the ocean.” Kurt waved a hand out toward the water, making Puck remember fondly how it felt to dive in and out of those waves (it'd only been a couple of hours and he wanted back in). “It feels like something bigger is out there, you know?”_

“ _There is,” Puck said, unthinking._

_Kurt blinked, then smiled. “Well, I meant metaphorically, but, sure. I suppose whales are much bigger than either of us, yeah.”_

_Puck nodded._

Another step forward took him even further from his abandoned skin, but following the tug in his midsection more than made up for that unease. He didn't stop until he was right in front of Kurt, with barely an inch of sand between them. This time, he noticed, Kurt didn't step back. “Well,” he said, not very loud because he was so close to Kurt's ear. “I _am_ real.”

Kurt nodded, and pushed forward suddenly to kiss him.

“ _Everything about this city is bigger,” Kurt sighed. “Even the buildings. Even the football players.”_

“ _The ocean is even bigger,” Puck assured him, hoping that a really weird sort of perspective might help. “I promise. And it's got all sorts of crazy in it. Have you ever seen the reefs? The_ colors _, man.”_

_It seemed to have work, at least a little, because Kurt was distracted enough to laugh lightly at his words. “Your family really has been all over, haven't they?”_

The kiss was wild. Like air. Nothing he was used to, and that was wonderful. Puck's hands shot out without his permission and grabbed onto Kurt's arms, pulling him closer with a little _mmph_ that he only had to wonder for a moment whether it was bad, because Kurt gripped him just as tight, then. The dry rub of his skin against Kurt's bare arms was fantastic; everything was so _new_. He pried a hand from Kurt's arm to run it through the man's hair, just to see what it would feel like: silky and smooth, and moving only where his fingers pushed it.

Kurt's mouth was... he supposed a human might call it wet, but to him the overwhelming sensation was _heat_ , and a kind of need that mirrored his own. It was so nice, he didn't want to move his mouth away, but Kurt chose that moment to pull back a little. “We should talk.” He sounded only mostly sure, so Puck didn't see any harm in arguing.

“We did that already.” _Seven years_ , played over and over again in his mind. They had to use their time wisely.

Pausing, Kurt licked his lips, then said carefully, “I know a place we could go.”

“ _A little bit of everywhere, yeah, but mostly along the coastline,” Puck said, just in case Kurt started to ask him questions about specific cities that he couldn't answer. Luckily, all of Kurt's next questions were about fish and reefs and what he'd seen along the way, which were easy. He told Kurt his mother studied fish, which was why her job had them moving like they did._

“ _Are you going to do that too?” Kurt wanted to know. “I mean, you're not in a college program or anything... you_ seem _too young...”_

“ _I'm not in college,” Puck hastened to say, before he had to answer with something more specific and technically a lie. “I love the sea, though. I'll probably follow it around myself, you know.”_

“ _It's easy to find.”_

“ _I know,” Puck said. “But there's all these little_ parts _of it that like to hide. That's the stuff you gotta track down.”_

Puck nodded down toward his skin, before Kurt could tug him off to the 'place.' He didn't want to take the risk of touching it himself, not now, but...

“That has to come with,” he said, catching Kurt's eye so he'd understand the importance. “And I can't touch it.”

Kurt only nodded, more understanding than Puck should have been lucky enough to find, and reached down (letting go of Puck in the process, damnit). He picked up the towel he'd been holding before, which had dropped at some point Puck couldn't identify, and wrapped it carefully around the skin until it was completely hidden before tucking the bundle under his arm and grabbing Puck's hand once more. “Come on.”

He led Puck over the rocks, onto a much more open stretch of beach, and Puck faintly realized that it was lucky it was so late at night, and the area was deserted. Kurt pulled Puck toward what looked like a tiny shack in the middle of the sand, raised on stilts and accessible by a rickety set of stairs.

“Technically it's a life guard station, off limits,” Kurt was explaining, apparently not noticing that Puck didn't really care as long as their skin was touching. “But it's night and, well, you're not going to get very far dressed like... not at all.”

There were some blankets in the shack. That seemed fine enough to Puck. He was on Kurt before they'd lowered themselves fully to the floor. Kurt's skin tasted of heat and something citrusy, nothing at all like saltwater.

  
  


“ _If the ocean's as big as you keep saying, don't you have trouble finding it?”_

“ _I figure I'll just keep on looking. Don't you have anything to look for?”_

“ _It's not so much finding the thing as_ getting _it, for me.” Kurt smiled. “That's far less probable.”_

  
  


Morning broke with a miracle. It was brighter than Puck was used to, and drier, and the lingering threat of heat from the not-quite-risen sun lay static around the room. The first few moments were peaceful, which surprised him when he realized it, because they  _shouldn't_ have been. He was out of the ocean. He should have felt a longing, should have been compelled to rush right back to the water, but even though it seemed like a nice idea somewhere at the back of his mind...

He rolled over and found Kurt sleeping, half-covered by the scratchy blankets they'd found but otherwise naked, and he didn't want to leave. He wanted to slide a hand up the soft plane of Kurt's back, feel again the odd dryness of his skin and the warmth, the curve of his shoulder-blade. Kurt sighed at the touch, shifting just a little before settling back down. Puck didn't try to stop the smile that spread across his face. Kurt was incredible, and he wanted him. He wanted... Fuck, he wanted to  _stay_ .

He'd given this up once before, diving back into the water in a fit of shear relief that he'd been  _allowed_ to, but now that he'd had a chance to think it over, he wasn't sure he could imagine doing the same thing twice in a row. Even on the second try, Kurt hadn't withheld his skin, just carried it along and... Puck wasn't even sure where it had been dropped, but it clearly wasn't any more care to Kurt than where his own clothes had been abandoned.

Puck would have to find it, thought. Well, he'd have to have Kurt find it, actually, because even though every molecule of his body wanted to be  _here_ ,  _now_ , the sight of his skin would likely destroy that resolve in an irrational reaction. He'd have to tell Kurt to hide it, too (and the rush of having to  _tell_ a human to hide his skin was... well, a little terrifying, but amazing just the same). At least until they figured this out. He wasn't sure what this feeling meant, exactly, or how permanent it might be, but it was something amazing, like the man sleeping beside him. At least for now, he wanted to stay.

Imagine what sort of stories they were going to tell about him back home.

The thought made him laugh lightly, and Kurt, in turn, squirmed a little under the blankets, so Puck quieted again. He should wake Kurt up, he knew; he should tell him everything, all the weird shit and the stuff he needed to know, and how to help Puck stay. But Kurt looked so peaceful sleeping. He'd give it a few more minutes. The draw of the sea was hardly calling to him at all.

He got up as quietly as he could, slipping out from the blankets and tucking them back around Kurt (his skin had felt warm, but Puck wasn't sure how easily humans got cold). He'd just take a quick look outside, make sure the beach hadn't begun to fill with the morning crowd, making their exit from this shack a bit more awkward and immediately necessary. Luckily, it seemed to be too early for the visitors to start coming around, though he did spot a man jogging a ways down the beach, too far to be worried about. The man was just skirting the edge of the waves, and Puck felt a surge of contentment at the sight, to close enough to the water but still here with Kurt.

Puck glanced in the other direction, and something bright orange caught his eye. He looked down: a towel, placed just on the edge of the shack's doorway. Right, he thought, remembering Kurt's reaction the first time they'd met, probably better to cover himself up, just in case that jogger decided to reverse direction. He reached down and picked up the towel, waving it a little to unfold it...

His skin fell out of the fabric to the shack's floor. For a moment, all Puck could do was stare at it, confused. Kurt had wrapped it up last night... in a... towel. The towel fell to the floor as well, but Puck's hand reached slowly down for his skin, without his mind's command. He still couldn't quite understand what he was seeing. It didn't make sense; everything had been fine, hadn't it?

As soon as he touched his skin, the world rushed back, the confusion lifted, and he remembered. Of  _course_ , it made sense for the towel and its contents to have been dropped here; Kurt didn't care for keeping him caged, and Puck hadn't had time to explain the significance (too busy exploring the feeling of their tongues against each other, damnit, he'd been stupid). Now that he held it, the compulsion of the sea rushed back a hundred-fold; he'd been away for hours, a whole night. His feet were inching toward the water even before he realized it.

He was halfway down the steps before he thought to look back up at Kurt, still asleep in a nest of blankets. He should have woken him.

Before he could stop himself, Puck was down by the water's edge, slipping into his skin while the pattern of the waves roared in his ears, cutting everything else out (even if Kurt woke now and called to him, he wouldn't be able to hear it). For the second time, he turned his back on the same human, and dove into the water.

  
  


  
  


Seven years, God. It had been a long time before, but  _now_ ...

Kurt wouldn't wait a second time.

  
  


This time, the tug wasn't a manageable thing. It wasn't subtle or soft or uncertain at all. It pointed him in a very exact direction, the same way his body refused to allow him to go. It shifted up and down the coast for the first couple of days, not far in either direction, and Puck imagined Kurt wandering the shoreline, wondering why Puck had run out on him before he even woke up. The pull was a physical pain around his chest, and Puck waited four days before he couldn't stand it, and decided to find out whether distance made it worse or better.

It didn't do either, didn't cause any change at all, which Puck found even less bearable than either of the original options. He got about halfway to where his family should have been before giving up and turning back around, figuring he'd follow the pull as much as he could, even if that wasn't much.

Traveling, he passed a pod he knew with some old friends, through whom he passed a message back to his family, since he hadn't made it himself. Santana told him he looked awful, which he thought was her being kind, given how he felt he should look.

He spent a lot of time feeling sorry for himself. He spent a little longer being angry at whatever the hell had made all these stupid rules (seven years his  _ass_ , that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard of), and just a bit being angry at the ocean for feeling like home, at Kurt for feeling like the same, at the pair of them for not making up their minds between themselves who would get custody.

At least the waters around California were warm this time of year.

  
  


The call woke Puck from a very uneasy sleep, and he woke hazy and not entirely sure what was going on. Maybe that was part of the reason he actually followed it. Maybe part of the reason was that, when a human female called a selkie like that (seven tears into the sea, usually with a full moon and/or several other ritual sorts of things Puck didn't care much about), they were generally asking for sex, and he was in a weird sort of mood right now that sex would either help of make much, much worse. Maybe part of the reason was hoping she'd be the ambitious sort and try to take his skin, and maybe... maybe there was a loophole; like, if he was already on land, the seven year rule didn't apply...

Whatever it was, he followed the call, the seven drops of out-of-place water in the sea that any male selkie could smell from miles away, absently registering a figure on the dark shore that marked his target, and shed his skin with a very distant feeling before actually looking up to see what sort of woman had summoned him.

Only, it wasn't a woman, and that made no sense, and he stumbled back a few steps in shock, giving Kurt ( _Kurt_ ) the chance to do something he'd never done before. The man leaned down without any prompting, grabbed the skin that Puck had left carelessly on the sand, and bundled it into a bag that hung at his side, keeping one hand protectively on the handle as though he expected Puck to try to grab it back. Puck was too busy gaping at him, though, and Kurt's next words, prompted by the long silence and probably the expression on Puck's face, bellied the protective way he held the bag.

“I'll give it back, if you want me to.” He spoke softly, though his grip didn't loosen on the bag.

Puck shook his head.

“Okay, then.” Kurt paused again, and Puck imagined he was waiting for a response, but Kurt seemed to be (for some reason) the one who actually understood what the hell was going on here, so. “I did some research,” Kurt said. “I don't know why I didn't do that the first time. I get why you wanted me to carry your skin, now; did you find it in the morning?”

“Yeah,” Puck said, finally. “I'm sorry, I...”

Kurt was already waving off the apology. “Like I said, I should have researched the first time. Thinking something might be a hallucination is no reason not to read up on it.” He attempted a shaky smile.

“How did you, um...”

“Call you?” Kurt _really_ smiled at this one, looking proud of himself. “Like I said, I did some research. Seven years, right? But there were all those stories of women calling up male selkies if they were unsatisfied or whatever, and I figured, well, _I'm_ not satisfied, and I can certainly cry as well as any woman if need be, and anyway, gender roles are totally out this century, so I gave it a try, and.” He gestured to Puck, demonstrating the effectiveness of his efforts.

Puck laughed. Kurt had  _bent_ the legends to get him here? Puck wouldn't have bet himself that it would ever have worked, and he'd had all the knowledge to begin with. “You're kind of amazing.”

“Says the selkie,” Kurt replied. “Which, wow. That's really something, isn't it? I mean, not to you, but. It would have been easier if you'd told me in the first place, I could've... But I guess you don't tell everyone; it wouldn't be safe, and, well, _clearly_ I talk to much, so just thank God for Google, basically.”

“I would have told you,” Puck said. “I didn't plan it right.” That was an understatement. Also, “What's Google?”

Kurt snorted, bending a little at the waist as what looked like a thousand pounds of tension seeped out of his body. Only his hand stayed tense in place on the bag's strap. “I'll explain later.” He paused. “Later?” he repeated, less certain this time.

Puck nodded. “Yeah. You can loosen the death grip, by the way.” He pointed to the bag. “I can't take it back if you're holding onto it.”

At that, Kurt made a face. “Seriously? You couldn't even like, wrestle it out of someone's hands if you didn't want them to... Never mind. Later, right?”

“It's easier for me if I can't see it, though,” Puck added, and Kurt jumped a little before bending over to fiddle with the bad. He started to zip it up, then paused to reach into the bottom and pull out a spare set of clothes.

“These are for you, if you want... Are you _sure_ you don't want your skin back?”

“Not yet,” Puck said. He took the clothes from Kurt's hands (not at all practiced on how to put them on right, but they looked simple enough, at least). “These are good for now.”

“Right.” Kurt smiled. “Well, my apartment's a little ways from here, but I have my car. We could go back there for now, and...?”

“Yeah, take it from there. Put that thing in the closet,” Puck added, pointing out the bag again, now zipped fully and hardly tempting at all, “and we'll actually have time to talk about all this shit.”

Kurt smiled. “That sounds nice.” He offered his hand once Puck had dressed, and Puck took it in his own. He walked away, only a few steps taking him further from the water than he'd ever been in his life, but Kurt's hand made him feel safe, anyway. At home.

He squeezed Kurt's fingers, and the band that had tugged at his chest for more than eight years finally relaxed when Kurt squeezed back.

%MCEPASTEBIN%

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know how much I laughed when I saw that 'clothes sharing' was coming up as a trope and I could use that as a platform for my selkie sequel?
> 
> Day 30 (last drabble!) is a very specific trope to finish out the series, but I still have some selkie!verse thoughts so I'll probably have a 'bonus' Day 31 to finish this thing off.


	30. Day 30- Zombie AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 30, y'all! A little late, but we made it!

The early days of the zombie apocalypse had gone, astonishingly, kind of great.

Not in the sense of, like, their families and friends dying along with at least 95% of the human population, but they'd developed something that was either perspective or gallows humor in relation to that whole event, so they typically blew past it in conversation these days. Maybe, if humanity ever re-emerged, they'd get some therapy.

Anyway, other than all the death, Kurt and Puck themselves did pretty well; raided all the right stores, had access to the right cars, enough video game experience that they at least knew how to _attempt_ to aim (okay, not really, but there were plenty of targets to practice on, and that's what makes perfect, right?). Good stuff all around. Puck knew about jimmying open locks and which sports drinks were most efficient in terms of electrolytes, and Kurt knew about fixing car engines and what foods wouldn't spoil in less than two weeks.

While the remaining 5% of the human population was still flailing around shouting about “oh my God, zombies, _what the fuck_ ,” Kurt and Puck had taken off for, not the nearest wooded area, but somewhere actually hidden. The northern US had some seriously backwoods-type regions. They weren't heroes; they just found a cabin.

Supply runs were risky, but rarely necessary, and they were pleasantly unsurprised to discover that zombie movies were generally shitty and wrong, and zombies were _not_ drawn from hundreds of miles around by the vague scent of human flesh to paw at the door to their cabin. In fact, they almost never saw a zombie unless they had to go into town, and the occasional dead guy who wandered past tended to have no idea they were even there until he had a bullet in his head.

Honestly, the bigger worry would be coming across anyone alive, and smart enough to point a gun _back_ , but they hadn't come across anyone with brain function since settling down here two months ago. They went about their days not bothered by anyone, undead or otherwise, safe and kind of tired of canned food and often very bored. They occupied themselves by fortifying the cabin and trying to name as many (probably dead) celebrities as they could remember.

Seriously, therapy, they would look into it. Assuming there were any therapists left. Like, anywhere.

Maybe Russian troops would storm in at some point. Russia was cold, right? Do zombies freeze? Whatever.

See, those were the kind of questions you asked when you were this bored. Also:

“I mean, we might be _literally_ the last two men on earth. Don't we like, owe it to the memory of our species?”

“Why?” Kurt asked, idly cleaning a gun, which he allowed to take up more of his attention than was generally necessary. “It's not like we could repopulate.”

“Yeah,” Puck admitted. “Shame we're not, like, one of those fish species or whatever.”

“What?”

“Aren't there some kinds of fish where the guys can turn into girls if there's none around?”

Kurt took his eyes off the gun to stare at Puck in disbelief. “Are you actually suggesting... No, wait. You saying you're willing to take the chance it could be you who turned?”

Fidgeting in his seat by the window (where he was supposedly keeping watch, not that they ever really had anything to watch for), Puck twisted the corner of his mouth at the implication. “Well...”

“Exactly.” Kurt returned to the gun. It wasn't dirty, exactly, but they couldn't afford a misfire at the wrong moment. “Besides, that whole idea seems to go against your original statement of preserving the memory of our own species: human, not fish.”

“Fair enough,” Puck offered. “We'll just have to hope there are some other people out there— other _women_ out there who can continue on.”

Kurt hummed a little in response, figuring that was the end of the conversation, and finished reassembling the gun, moving on to the the next that could use a cleaning.

“But, say we _were_ the last two people alive on earth...”

Kurt groaned. “ _Puck_.”

“I'm just _saying_.” Puck spoke over Kurt's protests, pushing on and on. “If we're the last two guys around, shouldn't we, you know, take advantage of it? It's almost inevitable, if we're spending every day together and there's no one else around. And, I mean, what if one of us dies tomorrow, and we never—”

“What _if_ one of us dies tomorrow,” Kurt said finally, standing up from his seat and slamming the gun down onto the table so hard that Puck took the cue to shut the hell up. “What if we did just what you said, _for the memory of our species and inevitability_ and all that, and it was awesome and we woke up the next morning, and one of us died?”

The worst part was that, actually, Puck kind of had a point about the 'inevitability' of it all. Not that Kurt tought he would have fallen into the arms of just anyone he'd happened to get stuck with in a cabin at the end of the world, but he had grown (dangerously) _fond_ of Puck lately.

Puck shouted dumb things like 'headshot!' or 'KO' when he killed zombies on the first shot, and he insisted on stopping by the candy isle on supply runs because 'jellybeans don't expire, like, ever,' and he didn't have any sort of bedhead in the mornings because he didn't have any _hair_ , kept it shaved short these days. And he still made stupid jokes with the excuse of preserving all facets of human culture ('what would the world be if we forgot blonde jokes, Kurt?'), and his right arm always got sore quicker than his left when they had to do any sort of heavy lifting of bodies to burn.

“What if I died tomorrow?” Kurt asked, more quietly. “Would it make it any better, that we'd slept together tonight?”

Puck didn't answer immediately, glancing up and down Kurt's body where he stood. Finally, he swallowed. “No.”

“Right, then,” Kurt said, and sat back down. He picked up the gun, went back to taking it apart. “So, no.”

Puck nodded, shifting in his chair and sounding an awful lot quieter than before. He turned back to the window to keep watch, and the room settled slowly into a stillness that had become more common lately.

“Not yet,” Kurt whispered under his breath, a half-second before the room was settled enough that Puck could hear him.


	31. Day "31"- Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm cheating SORRY but I wasn't done with the selkie!verse okay. Also 'wedding' should be on the trope list so w/e I'm taking this onto the end. Here have part three of my selkie series to wrap it all up.

Puck stood still on the beach, feet dug into wet sand so that each incoming wave would crash over them, some barely touching his toes, some large enough to wet his ankles. He'd rolled his pant legs up past his knees before coming down here, knowing it would wrinkle them a little, but that it was preferable to sand or water stains on the black fabric. His shoes and socks had been left up by the rocks. He stood by the water and stared out at an ocean that felt like home.

But, only half of one. Or something like that. He was still figuring it out. He hadn't quite put it into words, mostly because there was no one to explain it to except for Kurt, and Kurt was the other, the more important part of _home_ that he needed to stay with. It was like... like that time Kurt had gone on a diet for a few weeks, and Puck had joined him for the sake of solidarity. Sure, he'd _wanted_ to be able to just grab a roll or something to snack on, was hungry a little more than usual, but it was worth it to see Kurt smiling at him, grateful. A lot of things were worth it, for Kurt.

Plus, they only lived a twenty-minute walk from the beach, anyway. He could smell the saltwater in the air.

It was quiet out here. He wasn't going to be speaking to his family today, had already done that, had already come to terms that they thought this was a rather stupid decision on his part. He was just there to get his bearings, a little. To make sure, maybe, that he had no regrets, because while Puck happened to enjoy jumping headfirst into whatever came up, Kurt would never forgive him if he did this without being sure it was what he wanted.

'What he wanted.' A dumb phrase. He wanted the sea. But, _more_ , he wanted Kurt. It was the quality that mattered; you couldn't have everything you wanted, so you picked what you wanted most.

“Hey, lover-boy, you're gonna get your pants soaked.”

Puck turned around and saw Quinn navigating carefully over the rocks, lifting the hem of her skirt cautiously even though it's knee-length and in no danger of touching the ground. “Am not,” he shot back. “I rolled them up.”

“Well, get out of the water and roll them _down_ , before Kurt kills me for letting you look like a hobo on your wedding day.”

Puck smiled. He liked Quinn. Couldn't remember whether she was standing up on his or Kurt's side today (all his close friends tended to be Kurt's close friends, given that he's only lived on land for like a year and a half and he was pretty bad at socializing for a while), but she looked gorgeous all the same. Her dress was light and airy and blue, perfect for a beach wedding, which was always the only option. Kurt hadn't protested that for a second.

“A hobo standing next to a Disney princess,” Puck said, gesturing at Quinn's dress.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Don't flirt; you're going to be married in about an hour.”

“So this is my last chance.”

She laughed, light and beautiful, and the strands of hair hanging from her up-do wafted in the slight breeze, and in another life, he _might_ have flirted with her and meant it. But not this one. In this one, there was just the one human who drew him out of the sea. So he took Quinn's hand, stepped out of the waves, and let her lead him to that person.

The wedding was, itself, rather short, or at least Puck didn't take in much of it, just Kurt's face and eyes and smile, and the feeling of _together_ that strengthened with every word the dude in the black suit said to them both.

The reception felt longer, though he still spent most of it staring at Kurt. He spent most of it dancing, too, because it felt like a weightless sort of thing, like swimming. At one point, Kurt took his hand and drew him aside, away from anyone who could congratulate them again (thought Kurt's brother _tried_ to waylay them) and halfway down the beach.

“I have something for you.”

Puck grinned. “I think the wedding tradition is that other people are supposed to give _us_ gifts, babe. But I mean, I am new to the whole 'human condition' and all...”

Kurt smacked him on the arm, laughing. “Shut up, I want to do this, I...” He trailed off, laughter fading faster than it should. “I need you to take this.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope.

“A letter?” Puck's eyebrows rose. He took the envelope from Kurt, moving automatically to rip it open, but—

“No!” Kurt said loudly, then pulled himself back from where he'd begun to reach out, cheeks flushed. “I mean, wait. If you want to, then... But I have to explain, first.”

Puck pulled his other hand carefully away from the letter, holding it gingerly by the edge, now. “Okay?”

“Haven't you... ever wondered what I did with your skin?”

Puck was feeling colder by the second, now, and pulled himself away just a little, an inch or two that felt very important. “No,” he said firmly. “I told you to hide it, I don't _care_ what—”

“But I do,” Kurt interrupted. “No,” he said, cutting Puck off, “not because I want you to leave or anything, I just, I want you to know where it is, just in _case_ you... change your mind, or—”

“Kurt, for real?” Puck can't help the exasperation seeping into his voice. They've been over this; they just got _married_ , for fuck's sake. “I've already told you, I want to be here.”

“I know,” Kurt said, and held out a hand to cup Puck's face. Puck almost jerked away, but reluctantly allowed it after a moment (Jesus, though, if Kurt still thought he wasn't sure _now_...). “Puck, I _know_. I told you, I don't _want_ you to leave.”

Puck crushed the very edge of the envelope in his hand. He didn't know what was in it, but he wanted to drop it onto the sand, let the waves wash it away until it dissolved somewhere he would never know about.

“I just...” Kurt seemed to struggle for words, the only sure thing was the thumb that stroked across Puck's cheekbone. “We don't know what might change in the next fifty years, you know? Things could happen, we could— I might get hit by a _bus_ next week, and you wouldn't know how to get your skin back.” Puck's free hand shot out at the suggestion to tighten around Kurt's arm. “I just don't want you to not have an escape route, okay? I don't want you to get trapped.”

Puck let out a breath. Okay, so he wasn't happy with that, either (never would be happy with the suggestion of Kurt dying, jeez), but he could... sort of get it. This was the compromise he'd been waiting for, after months of Kurt making sure he knew what he was getting into, checking and double-checking that he didn't secretly want to return to the sea, and Puck telling him not to worry about it. This was what it took to make Kurt comfortable, like Puck already was.

“So what's in the envelope?”

“There's a safety-deposit box,” Kurt said, obviously relieved at the chance to explain properly. “I mean, a storage locker probably would've been easier, since it's probably illegal or something to keep a skin like that, but storage lockers auction off your stuff if you miss too many payments, and I didn't want to risk it. Anyway, there's a box, and it's got your skin, and you can access it if you need to, I made sure of it. All the information you need to do it is in there.” He waved at the envelope.

Puck glanced down at it again. It seemed a little less threatening now, and he smoothed down the crumpled edge with his thumb.

“That's not too tempting, is it?” Kurt asked, nervous again. “It's not like putting your skin in your hand or anything...?”

“No, no, this is good.” Puck inhaled, exhaled, knew what was in the letter and still felt okay, still wanted to be standing here. “I'm good. So I can just...” He trailed off, waving a hand in what he hoped was a gesture that encompassed finding his skin and everything after that.

“Yeah,” Kurt said, voice breaking just a little on the word. “I mean, if you do it while I'm still around, I can't promise I won't try calling you back, just to figure out _why_ and everything, but. You should just have a way to go back, if you need to.”

“Okay,” Puck said. He tucked the letter into his own jacket, already thinking vaguely of finding some out-of-the-way drawer back at home to put it in for (hopefully) at least a couple of decades (at some point he figured they might move or something, but until then he wouldn't need to touch it). “Okay.”

“Good.” Kurt smiled, looking satisfied that Puck had taken the letter and kept his hand on Kurt. He leaned in close, tilting his face to kiss Puck gently on the lips, and Puck moved to deepen it...

“Yo!”

Fuck, Finn had found them. At least it wasn't a minute earlier.

“You're missing your own party, dudes. Honeymoon starts _later_ tonight, not right now. Mom's complaining you haven't danced with her yet, Puck.” Finn grinned wildly, obviously entranced with the beach and the strands of lights and the open bar.

“Yeah, yeah, we're coming.” He turned to follow Finn back to the party, _their_ party, which, yeah, they should probably be attending. He glanced back at Kurt for a moment. “Good?”

“Good,” Kurt said, smiling. “More than. Come on.”

Puck chuckled in agreement, tugging Kurt back over the rocks, back to where the lights were all strung up for them.


End file.
